Cultivate Culinary School and Catering, Inc.
Cultivate Food Hub Cold Storage FacilityCultivate Culinary School and Catering, Inc.
Cultivate Food Hub Cold Storage Facility
To the 67,000 residents of St. Joseph, Elkhart, and Marshall Counties currently living in poverty, food insecurity is a very real problem. And at a time when the U.S. wastes 133 billion pounds of food annually, it’s (heartbreaking.) also a very frustrating problem for those in need. One local organization, however, has been busy implementing a solution in our community.
Since their founding in 2016, Cultivate Food Rescue has rescued over four million pounds of perishable food from local food businesses which they repackaged into convenient frozen meals, then distributed to local pantries and service agencies. The meals are then made available free of charge or at deep discount to those facing food insecurity. Cultivate’s vision is “to see no neighbor hungry and no food wasted.” Storage space limitations, however, mean they’re frequently offered more rescued food than they can accept.
Cultivate wants to increase their food rescue capacity from the current 1 million pounds annually to a projected 19-20 million pounds. To this end, they submitted a grant request to help fund the construction of a new, 21,000 square foot cold storage facility. The Foundation, a previous Cultivate supporter, cited the efficiency and growth of the existing operation in combination with the projected health and economic development benefits in awarding a grant.
