Progress 09/01/19 to 08/31/20
Outputs
Target Audience:Our primary audience for this project were students of the Philabundance Community Kitchen. Established in 2000, PCK supports low-income adults by providing free, high-quality job training. The program is designed for students with limited work experience and significant personal challenges--including a history of homelessness, mental illness, or incarceration. Through professional-level training, life skills development, and ongoing support for two years after the program, PCK prepares adults to confidently enter the workforce and retain employment while preparing healthy meals for community members in need from its production kitchen. During the grant period, PCK explored a partnership with Iovine Brothers Produce, a vendor at Reading Terminal Market to investigatehow providing instruction to PCK students in flash-freezing would impart additional skills, making them more employable in the culinary workforce. Changes/Problems:Because the job training component was designed prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, we faced challenges in being able to deliver consistent in-person instruction. Some classes were conducted remotely, but the content of instruction remained the same. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Though this project was intended as a planning grant, it was conducted in a way that enhanced professional development for a select number of PCK's students. Three students took part in the pilot program, receiving additional training in operating flash freezing technology and cutting skills. Their participation in this pilot allowed us to respond best to their needs and gauge how a long-term program could benefit many more students. Working with their feedback, we are refining the flash-freezing training program as we move forward. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?During the grant period, PCK opened its new location in North Philadelphia. We showcased this facility to a number of donors and beneficiaries, providing tours that focused in part on our new equipment and flash freezers,explaining how this technology will benefit our students. On August 25, 2020, several members of Iovine Brothers' staff toured our new facility, where they were able to see our new teaching facility, equipment, and shared spaces. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?
Nothing Reported
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
With this grant from USDA NIFA, the Philabundance Community Kitchen explored a partnership with Iovine Brothers Produce, a vendor at Reading Terminal Market that specializes in selling produce purchased from local and regional growers. As well reducing food waste, this program sought to discover how providing instruction to PCK students in flash-freezing would impart additional skills, making them more employable in the culinary workforce. First Goal: The limited availability of job-training programs in Philadelphia that support low-income adults facing barriers to employment. 1) Major activities completed / experiments conducted: Philabundance Community Kitchen offers free vocational training to low-income adults in the Philadelphia community. This planning grant allowed PCK to explore a partnership with Iovine Brothers that would benefit both PCK's students and Iovine's ability to make use of flash-freezing processes in order to reduce food waste, increase profits, and better prepare PCK students for the workforce. PCK and Iovine conducted a series of meetings to test the viability of pursuing this program. 2) Data collected PCK staff and instructors explored the feasibility of expanding training for PCK students, investigating how workshops and classes in the flash-freezing process would enhance students' culinary skills. Iovine provided the product, while PCK instructors and staff provided demonstrations and supervised student activities. PCK students participated these lessons, learning how to use flash-freezing technology and to hone crucial knife skills. Iovine identified three items for initial piloting: bananas/berries, corn, and broccoli. PCK and Iovine have both tested the product. 3) Summary statistics and discussion of results The primary goal of this planning project was to explore how a partnership between PCK and Iovine Brothers would benefit PCK students' employment prospects by providing additional training in upcycling, flash-freezing, marketing, and packaging. Working with Iovine, three PCK students were part of a test class. They learned about flash-freezing techniques and gained additional practice with food preparation and upcycling. They also gained additional skills in marketing, packaging, and collaborating with outside vendors. 4) Key outcomes and achievements PCK staff and instructors determined that students benefit directly by learning flash-freezing techniques, as it gives them extra practice with knife skills, which are difficult to acquire and currently in high demand in the culinary world. Due to the COVID-19 outbreak, the culinary workforce has become intensely competitive, with many restaurants struggling to stay in business or pay their existing workers. As a result, the pandemic has made jobs for our students increasingly scarce. We determined that this program would make them more flexible and versatile in the workplace. Second Goal: The large amounts of food waste caused by farmers unable to sell perishable produce before it goes bad. 1) Major activities completed / experiments conducted: The funds were spent on the wages of our employees who organized, designed, and participated in the planning sessions with Iovine, as well as those who performed research about flash freezing, and how PCK students would be best served by this technology and expertise. Philabundance employed ten staff members who completed a total of 206 hours of research and planning. PCK and Iovine Brothers created a timeline for implementing this pilot program and took initial steps to follow it. PCK acquired a flash freezer and then began testing product between July and September of 2020 and launched this program in early October 2020. 2) Data collected Staff research and planning led to a greater understanding of the following: The equipment needed to flash-freeze berries and other fruit; The potential for Iovine's direct involvement in PCK's training program, especially regarding the teaching of upcycling and flash freezing; The potential to use flash freezing to move into selling prepared items such as soups, salads, and sandwiches. 3) Summary statistics and discussion of results PCK and Iovine Brothers determined the ways this partnership would not only reduce food waste but also significantly prolong the shelf-life of produce, particularly berries and other types of fruit, thereby increasing revenue for both Iovine Brothers and PCK. In addition, PCK explored the possibility of using flash-freezing to preserve and market produce from local producers year round. These practices would allow us to support the local economy and limit strain on the environment. This flash-freezing program would add value to fruits and vegetables by allowing them to be sold out of season. 4) Key outcomes and achievements PCK and Iovine discovered that this partnership would generate another revenue stream. In addition, PCK is exploring the possibility of co-branding product with Iovine, which would allow PCK to generate more money and take steps toward becoming more self-sustaining, with additional monies directed toward educating more students and providing more professional opportunities. During the grant period, PCK and Iovine charted a partnership process to begin a co-branding and marketing campaign. Iovine is involving its marketing group, Paragraph, Inc., and Philabundance's communications team also began the process of exploring marketing techniques. Iovine has been working to provide the packaging for this project. Third Goal: The food-insecure individuals of Greater Philadelphia who need nutritious, accessible food today. 1) Major activities completed / experiments conducted: PCK's primary goal has always been to enhance the employability of Philadelphia's residents by providing no-cost instruction to individuals who do not possess the requisite qualifications for other culinary training programs. By becoming versatile in flash-freezing, our student population would acquire additional skills and other ways to enter the food preparation industry. In addition to enhancing the wage-earning capabilities of Philadelphia's low-income population, PCK also produces meals for pantries and food-insecure populations. With this grant, PCK explored the possibility of using flash-freezing to prolong the lifespan of foods prepared for missions, food pantries, and our partner agencies. 2) Data collected PCK's proposed partnership with Iovine was determined to increase PCK's ability to bring in money to serve not only our students but also the community more broadly. This pilot program collected data on how co-branding efforts with Iovine would bring an additional revenue stream to Philabundance, allowing PCK to rely less on grant funding. Iovine has constructed a schedule to deliver and pick up product from PCK, and Philabundance's communications team is working with Iovine to create packaging that will include PCK's branding. 3) Summary statistics and discussion of results The revenue generated by branding and marketing would enable PCK to fund more education opportunities for students and provide additional meals for our food distribution partners. Students would also gain valuable retail and marketing experience. 4) Key outcomes and achievements This pilot program demonstrated how a partnership with Iovine Brothers would benefit multiple stakeholders, resulting in less food waste, more value-added processing, more educational and professional development opportunities for PCK students, and an increased number of meals for Philadelphia's food-insecure population. By pursuing co-branding opportunities with Iovine, PCK will be able to generate more capital for its program with the goal of becoming self-sustaining. In addition, PCK students will receive additional training with food preparation and marketing techniques, which will enhance their versatility in an increasingly competitive job market.
Publications
|