Commonwealth Kitchen: Innovating for a Sustainable, Equitable Food System
Today, we are highlighting work from students in Steven Finn’s course: MET ML626 – Food Waste: Scope, Scale, and Signals for Sustainable Change. This post comes from Sarah Thompson.
If you are in Massachusetts, chances are, sipping on Madhrasi Chai, snacking on GRIA nuts, or dining at Clover Food Lab, you have enjoyed the fruits of labor of those in the Dorchester-based culinary incubator, Commonwealth Kitchen. In our Global Food Waste class (MET ML 626), we had the pleasure of hearing Kevin Doherty speak on his innovative work as Director of Culinary Operations at Commonwealth Kitchen.
Kevin discussed the mission and values that Commonwealth Kitchen was founded upon: equity, collaboration, and sustainability. I felt very uplifted by the emphasis that he placed on sustainable food manufacturing practices and how realistic he made them seem. Often when I hear the term “food manufacturing” I cringe in thinking about the amount of food that is wasted, or the items that are added to products to make them last months longer than natural foods in order to save the manufacturers a buck or two. As Kevin noted, to some unfortunately, “it’s not about the integrity of the product, it’s about the integrity of the profit.” But one of the most encouraging things Kevin mentioned was how Commonwealth Kitchen does everything in its power to seek ways to produce less waste and keep product ingredients to a minimum. It was very heartening to hear the way he connects with partners and suppliers in the New England region. For them, the goal is to source as much local product as possible and they’re not afraid to buy “seconds.” They work with local farmers as well as organizations like Boston Area Gleaners and take what’s given to them to create new recipes for university events, hospitals, and other healthcare facilities.
One of the coolest examples that we actually got to taste was a falafel developed from yellow field peas. The yellow field pea, I learned, is usually a cover crop, in this case grown by a farm in Maine to preserve soil health in preparation for the actual money-maker crop to follow. Now, at Commonwealth Kitchen, it is being used in a delicious way while providing triple bottom line benefit – providing income and nutrition while advancing circularity.
Another takeaway from this discussion involved the great ideas Kevin has about how to package products. Never have I met anyone that thinks more about the potential of 5-gallon buckets than Kevin does! But it was fascinating to hear his ideas on how they could be utilized to reduce packaging waste through a process involving transportation of food (to schools, for example) followed by cleaning and re-use.
The developments and creativity emerging from Commonwealth Kitchen are no small feat with regard to the number of businesses they support, the challenges of daily operations, and the way they achieve everything with sustainable efforts top of mind. Further, they offer a lot of other awesome programs that are geared towards helping BIPOC owners, caterers, and restaurants.
I would hope that a model of a culinary incubator like this with such high standards and high success rates could be multiplied several times over in various other cities across the country. I honestly think this could significantly help alleviate any accidental food waste. I would assume a new business owner might be naïve to all that goes into a successful business right away. I, for one, would not consider half of what we discussed in our class session – such as sourcing, packaging, and ingredient-management – but I think having a structured approach with the aid of professionals from the start can certainly lessen the waste that may come from trial and error of trying to grow a business on your own. While our class is tasked with thinking of impacts of our food practices on a global scale, particularly as they relate to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal of “halving per capita global food waste at the retail and consumer levels and reducing food losses along production and supply chains,” it’s people like Kevin and the rest of the minds at Commonwealth Kitchen that inspire people like me to think what might be possible.
I think my classmates and I can certainly attest that what comes out of this kitchen is not only delicious, but very admirable (I have a new-found love for garlic scape pesto in more ways than one, that’s for sure)!