Loaves & Fishes Family Kitchen

Description

Loaves & Fishes began with a simple meal of fish and bread for 11 adults and 15 children in February, 1980. For 34 years Loaves & Fishes operated as a traditional soup kitchen. In 2013, Loaves & Fishes began a transformation process to meet the ever changing needs of the Bay Area community. We centralized our meal preparation into one commissary kitchen and added delivery service similar to a caterer.

We started out with gradual changes at first as a proof of concept but quickly saw cost effectiveness, successes, and larger impact. Now in addition to serving our own meals at two locations 5 days a week, we also deliver to dozens of locations including churches, community centers, low-income apartment buildings, and other nonprofit partners where our clients are receiving additional services. In keeping with the theme of Silicon Valley innovation, we reinvented ourselves to "Soup Kitchen 2.0". Instead of feeding a few hundred people who can reach our facilities, we now serve thousands of meals per day and bring prepared meals to our clients. Because of these more efficient operations, our year-to-date number of meals served is up 93% over last year while our cost per meal is down 37%.