Our Urgency

Local food systems are facing an existential crisis: An increasing number of restaurants and food related businesses

are closing — and are in danger of never reopening.

We are developing a model to help preserve our local restaurant community while also feeding the increasing

population of food insecure Kansas Citians.

A collective of chefs, food industry partners and business leaders

working together to preserve the food system through a centralized

operating, procurement, marketing, packaging and

distribution model.

A Chef Collective project to create a holistic, civic scale plan

to meet our ever expanding, ever-changing community

food needs. The Community Meals Project

will provide free meals for those who need it the most.

Chef Collective KC, a subsidiary of the community

problem solving organization, REACH Collaborative, is

developing a way for chefs of Kansas City's favorite

locally-owned and operated restaurants to launch a

city-wide effort to keep kitchen staffs working.

The Community Meals Project will help efforts to

meet the surging food needs faced by our community as

we all go under the city-wide stay home order.

Chef Collective KC and The Community Meals Project will:

● Keep local Kansas City restaurant staff working

through the current crisis.

● Meet the needs of the increasing population of food

insecure citizens.

● Strengthen the buying power of local restaurants that

will benefit in the long run after the stay-at-home

order are lifted.

Reach Collaborative is working to launch and fund Phase 1 of the Chef Collective (to last 6 months) with

monetary donations from local foundations and philanthropic contributors, a private sponsorship

campaign and full price meal sales sold in partnership with local grocery stores. The commitment to the

restaurant teams is that everybody involved will be paid – with an agreed upon wage rate for the chef,

an agreed upon wage rate for the staff, and a stipend to subsidize facility overhead.

During this start-up time, the management team will be working to create a scalable and repeatable

model that will evolve into a way for single chef-led restaurant teams to work together to gain the

buying power and brand representation enjoyed by larger franchise and multiple location restaurants.

The centralized operations will be the brain for the business side, handling nearly all administrative

needs and creating an infrastructure for coordinated purchasing.

THE BIG IDEA:

Create a stable, funded and safe model for restaurant

teams to keep producing meals at scale to

predominantly be given away. This will help our

restaurant staffs weather the impact of the virus while

providing much needed meals to the people in our

community who have lost their jobs. The Collaborative

estimates that each kitchen can produce 1,000-1,500

meals daily. The intent is to be able to rapidly add

kitchens as need is identified and quantified.

1

HERE’S HOW IT WILL WORK:

We are building an interconnected network of Community Kitchens designed to organically expand across the city in direct response to specific food insecurity needs... whether sector based, constituent

based or geography based.

We have regularized the processes, contracts and staff structures so that every new kitchen launched follows an identical operational play book intended to speed launch, simplify budgeting/funding,

centralize purchasing and maintain consistent isolation protocols and social distancing protocols

throughout the process.

Because every aspect of the process is modular we can easily predict and project operating costs per kitchen, meal production capacity per kitchen, and average unit price per meal... which makes us

incredibly nimble, and able to adjust to fluctuations in demand across the network of kitchens.

OUR MODEL: A KIT OF PARTS APPROACH

2Distribute meal kits through area neighborhood

organizations and not-for-profits in the areas of the city

that need it the most. Focus on several distribution sites

and use neighborhood level delivery volunteers, so as to

limit social gathering when getting meals.

A PLAN TO MEET DYNAMIC COMMUNITY NEED:

Chef/kitchen staff teams

Network of non-profit and for-profit

commercial kitchens

Network of regional growersand food

distributors

Dynamic community need

Constituent based/Sector based/

Geography based

RAPID STABLE GROWTH:

Our modular approach will allow for the rapid expansion of a

network of Community Kitchens

in a safe, predictable and

transparent way to address our

increasingly unpredictable needs.

3LAUNCH THE COMMUNITY KITCHENS:

1 COMMUNITY KITCHEN =

10 Person staff

1,000+ meals / day

30,000+ meals / month

4Begin working with an area grocery partner to create a

Chef Collective KC kiosk at grocery so local restaurants

can participate in the ever-growing grab-and-go grocery

category. By giving chefs representation at the grocery

stores, this will contribute to the long term health of our

local restaurants after the crisis is over.

GROCERY PARTNERSHIP:

5 Once the community is able to enjoy meals in restaurants

once again, the collective will serve as a way for small

restaurants to enjoy the scale that larger restaurants

enjoy and, in the end, make the restaurant business a

more profitable and successful business for all.

SMALL RESTAURANT BENEFITS:

Jon Taylor - Founder, REACH Collaborative + Chef Collective KC

Natalie Lewis - Systems Engineer; Non-profit Sector Liaison

Anthony Williams - Business Operations and Strategy

Pat Jordan - Community Liaison

David Brandt - Food Industry Expert and Food Broker

Mark Beam - Advisor, GKCCF Fund Advisory Committee

Tyler & Leigh Nottberg - Sponsor, Advisors

Megan Stephens/Nicole Satterwhite - Willoughby Design

Sarah Magill - Mags Media

Nate Orr/Spencer Fane - Legal Team

CHEF COLLECTIVE TEAM:

Brandon Winn - Formerly the chef of Webster House

Michael Foust - Executive Chef, Black Sheep

Howard Hanna - Chef/Owner, The Rieger

Kyle Bennett - GM, The Rieger

Laura Laiben - The Culinary Center of Kansas City

Andy Sloan - Founder of Room 39

Max Kaniger - Founder, Kanbe’s Market

Brandi Schoen - Founder, KC Food Circle

Greg Garbos - Systems Engineer and Owner, City Bitty Farm

John Gordon - Founder, Boys Grow

1. DEFINE THE SYSTEM PROBLEM | DEVELOP THE SYSTEM SOLUTION

REACH Collaborative is a community problem solving organization that specializes in

defining and addressing civic scale systems problems. REACH functions as a

centralized business innovation engine.

2. SYSTEM BUSINESS STRUCTURE

Chef Collective KC is the for-profit business REACH Collaborative launched to simultaneously address short term food insecurity needs; workforce development; and the long term sustainability of our local food system.

3. SCALABLE SYSTEM INITIATIVE

The ‘Community Meals Project’ is the philanthropically fundable first initiative of

Chef Collective KC created to rapidly scale a network of NP‘s with commercial

kitchens.

4. CONNECTED NETWORKS OF NP’S

The magnitude of the food insecurity challenge we are facing today changes literally

every day. We must have a rapidly scalable model that is modular, transparent and

agile to meet the pace and unpredictability of the need.

5. FUNDING THE SYSTEM

Funding a system initiative requires a different funding model. This model requires a

trusted, isolated pool of money (a ‘System Fund’) that can be deployed nimbly, in

accordance with specific protocols. This model also requires that the ‘system fund’

have a mechanism to be easily replenished as the needs of the system expand.

OUR SYSTEMS APPROACH:

HOSTED AT GKCCF

THANK YOU