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Food

New space helps D.C. Central Kitchen step up its local-food-hub operations

By Kristen Hinman,July 19, 2011

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Last fall, Curtin and his colleagues found space to rehab in the Langdon Park neighborhood. The $600,000 in start-up costs are being underwritten by grants from the Boeing Co., the Morris & Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation, the Philip L. Graham Fund, Kaiser Permanente, Bank of America and others.

“The goal now is to make sure we’re running all the Fresh Start operations as efficiently, as effectively and as profitably as we can,” Curtin said.

The 6,000-square-foot space will be used primarily for production, though it will help Fresh Start serve its customers in different ways. “One thing this is not intended to be is the thing that makes us the largest school-food provider in D.C.,” Curtin said. Fresh Start will continue to make school meals in District-owned buildings. In the new space, “what we would be interested in is processing salsa for the chicken quesadillas we serve at school lunch, or making all the tomato sauce used in schools.”

And then there is the potential to work with the Spike Mendelsohns of the region.

We, the Pizza buys canned tomatoes from California most of the year for its pizza sauce. But from spring through summer, a hydroponic crop arrives weekly from Hummingbird Farms in Ridgely, Md. Mendelsohn wants to use more local tomatoes, with D.C. Central Kitchen buying more of the local crop at its peak, making the sauce and then storing it for use year-round.

“The relationship just made so much sense to me, I hardly had to think about it,” Mendelsohn said. “They get a better price, I get a better price, everybody’s happy, people are working, and the product is local.”

Tomato sauce is a test-drive, Mendelsohn added. When Good Stuff Eatery expands to Crystal City and Georgetown next year, the business wants Fresh Start to process many more items: potatoes for french fries, burger toppings, sauces for chicken wings and salad dressings.

Curtin said the partnership has the potential to create sustained community impact.

“At a time when most places in the economy are contracting, we’re creating a lot of jobs and revenue,” he said. “That’s a really powerful thing, to be creating jobs for men and women who have difficulty supporting their families.”

Hinman is a Washington journalist.

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