It’s easy to drive right by the FEED Kitchens facility on North Sherman Avenue without giving it a second glance—it’s a plain blue and grey building built in the middle of a parking lot, often surrounded by food carts—but inside this nondescript exterior you’ll find a diverse and vibrant world of cooks and food producers, entrepreneurs and nonprofits, working together to make FEED a vitally important link in our local food chain.
Opened in November of 2013, FEED Kitchens offers five separate commercial food production spaces that can be rented by anyone in the community—from small startup food producers, caterers, and food cart owners, to families looking for an oven big enough to bake a cake for a large wedding. The kitchen currently has 87 members, of which 60 are small businesses.
In late October, I had the opportunity to tour the facility with Kitchen Manager Chris Brockel, to get an update on how FEED has fared through the tumultuous years of the pandemic, and what he sees as future challenges and opportunities for the FEED Kitchens and our local food system as a whole.
COVID-19 Pandemic
Like almost every other part of our community and our lives, the COVID-19 pandemic has had a large impact on FEED Kitchens. According to Chris, the first part of 2020 was a struggle, with very little activity in the kitchen as people hunkered down at home. The North Side Planning Council launched the “FEED To Go” program, which employed cooks at the FEED Kitchen to prepare meals that were delivered to community members through curbside pickup. This program kept the kitchen afloat during the worst of the pandemic, and by the summer of 2020 things had started to improve. Vendors were returning to the kitchen, and finding ways to get their products directly to consumers.
The biggest shift that Chris identified during the pandemic was a decline in the number of food carts using the kitchen and a corresponding increase in bakery and value added food production businesses—things like sauces and other prepared ingredients. This is a reflection of the shift in eating habits during the pandemic. With so many people working from home, there was a marked decline in the food cart business, but on the flipside, many of us were in our homes, cooking more and indulging in comforting baked goods. Luckily for FEED Kitchens, the overall number of businesses patronizing the kitchen did not decline, it was simply the type of businesses that changed.
One of the biggest challenges that Chris sees as we climb out of the pandemic is finding kitchen space for food cart vendors as more and more of them come back online. With the additional bakers and food production businesses that were added during the pandemic, FEED Kitchens is now operating nearly at capacity, and adding new food carts is a tough proposition. Madison has historically had a vibrant and diverse food cart scene, and if we are to rebuild it to it’s pre-pandemic levels there will need to be commercial kitchen space available for food cart vendors to prepare the foods they sell.
The Future of FEED & Our Local Food System
As the Purchasing Director at Willy Street Co-op one of the things I value most about FEED Kitchens is the number of FEED vendors we work with who are members of marginalized groups, particularly people of color. For decades the Madison area has been home to one of our nation’s largest and most vibrant local food scenes, but the hard fact is that it’s predominantly been white people who have benefited, both as consumers and producers. FEED Kitchens is helping change that by giving access to necessary kitchen space to startup businesses, many of them owned by people from marginalized groups who might not otherwise have the access to the capital needed to start a food business.
According to Chris, 60% of the businesses working out of FEED Kitchens currently are owned or co-owned by people of color. Fifty-five percent are owned or co-owned by women. This is an astounding —and extremely hopeful—statistic, and it points to the important work that FEED is doing to help our local food system grow to be one that benefits all members of our community.
As we climb out of the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s important that we think about how we want to grow (and in some cases re-grow) our local food system. FEED Kitchens shows us that it’s possible to do this in a way that is equitable and inclusive of everyone in our community. As Chris and I talked about this, however, it became apparent that the operators of FEED Kitchens can’t do this work alone. Much of the equipment at the kitchen is aging, costs are rising, and Chris fears that the original intent of the kitchen—that it be financially self-sustaining—just isn’t possible without placing too much of a burden on the small business owners who get their start there. FEED Kitchens is truly a service to our community, and Chris believes it needs to be seen as that, and supported, if it is to continue to fill this role.
How to Support FEED Kitchens & FEED Vendors
- Support FEED Kitchens directly by going to their website (feedkitchens.org) and clicking Donate.
- Purchase FEED Kitchens products in our stores (see the list below!)
- Looking for a caterer or food truck for an upcoming event? Check out the FEED website to see a listing of vendors who might fit the bill.
FEED Kitchens Products Sold at Willy Street Co-op
- Chrysalis Pops Popsicles
- Ember Foods Prepared Foods
- Ernie’s Kick Sauce Sauces
- FEED Bakery Cookies and Pastries
- Masala Mojo Indian Spice Kits
- Mad Maiden Shrub Shrubs
- Madame Chu Southeast Asian Delicacies Sauces
- Mango Man Sauces
- MoJo’s MaJik BBQ Sauces
- Off the Block Salsa Frozen Pizza
- Rude Brew Kombucha Kombuchas
- Vitruvian Farms Packaged Salad Mixes
