What led me here

Crazy fact: We currently produce enough food on this planet to feed everyone, but logistics prevents us from getting it to people. Therefore, much of our food goes to waste along various stages in our food system.

I’ve spent most of my life in business, as a student, entrepreneur, and scholar. And I’m fed up with the dominant, capitalistic, Western business models that embody exploitative, extractive, and greedy practices. These structures mean that a handful of people and organizations get wildly rich while the rest of us struggle to survive. Most of us are only a few months away from being in serious financial trouble. If you add dependents like family members, spouses, pets, and kids, that’s a ton of stress and anxiety over making enough money to pay the bills while ensuring mental health and well-being. Food is a basic need and human right that everyone deserves. And while food banks / pantries help to collect and distribute food, you still have to know when and where they’re happening, have the time to go and wait in line, have a vehicle to transport multiple bags of heavy food, and then have the time, skills, and equipment to prepare and cook the food when you get home, if you even have a home.

That’s where Kukucachew comes in. I have the time and resources to do all of this because I made it my full-time job. I collect food that would have otherwise gone to waste, transform it into ready-to-eat meals and shelf-stable food, and then distribute it to Love Fridges and communities in need. I am also an educator who wants to teach people skills for self-empowerment rather than playing the rat race of constant dependencies on limited resources. I want to offer these things for free, but I still have to pay my own bills. So I’m relying on a Robin Hood / Pay-It-Forward business model by offering some things (e.g., personal chef services) to those who can afford it to supplement offering other things (e.g., free food, cooking classes, workshops) to those who can’t. But this is hard and very different from our conventional business models. So I’m relying on my communities to help support me in this endeavor.

This sounds like a non-profit organization. Why are you for-profit?

Non-profits are great, and they fill much needed gaps. But as someone who comes from a business background, I believe that for-profit business can and should help lead positive social changes. I think for-profit businesses can be responsible leaders for change in much faster ways than through government legislation or grassroots efforts. So I started Kukucachew to try to model the type of business behavior I want to see more of in the world. Cooperative, collective, and community-focused business to contribute collaborative and meaningful value to society. I’m not reinventing the wheel here— These types of business models already exist! I learned about cooperative business through African American management strategies and have also seen these types of models in other countries and cultures around the world. But here in the U.S., we don’t see enough of it.

What now?

I am passionate about sustainability and circularity. And while I believe that these approaches can and should be implemented whenever possible, it’s not easy. We live in existing structures and systems that have significant barriers to transitioning towards these goals.

I can’t fix climate change. I can’t fix societal injustices. I can’t fix the economy. But what I can do is try to make a difference within my communities, so that’s what I’m focusing on.

If any of this resonates with you or if you just wanna learn how to do cool stuff with food, please do any of the following:

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If you’re frustrated with things in this world, let’s help build community and take some action to confront those frustrations together. And eat some delicious food while doing it :) I look forward to going on this journey with y’all!