Nutritious Meals for Underserved Communities

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2025/05/12

Rethink Food addresses food insecurity by transforming excess restaurant food into nutritious meals for underserved communities. Drawing on experience at Eleven Madison Park, Matt Jozwiak applies fine dining standards to social service meals, improving quality and efficiency. The organization partners with top chefs and community centers, creatively using consistent surplus ingredients and supplementing with purchased items for nutrition. Rooted in addressing wealth inequality, Rethink Food promotes community-focused growth over risky scaling. Advocating for federal tax credits and leveraging AI for food waste tracking, the nonprofit sustains jobs and deepens local impact through respectful partnerships and mission-driven innovation.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Under the leadership of Matt Jozwiak, a former chef at Eleven Madison Park and Noma, Rethink Food partners with top culinary talent to address food insecurity. Matt contributes to impactful initiatives like celebrity chef dinners, most recently featuring Andrew Zimmern, Michael Schwartz, and Marc Vetri. We hope that Levin continues to support the mission. Passionate about sustainability and social good, Josh plays a vital role in expanding Rethink Food’s reach and deepening its impact across vulnerable populations, helping to build a more equitable and resilient food system. Thank you so much for joining me today—I appreciate it. I’m glad you’re warmer than I am! So, what inspired you to get involved with Rethink Food?

Matt Jozwiak: The main thing that inspired me to start Rethink Food was my background in high-end fine dining. I also volunteered from time to time at community centers. I saw the operational challenge of running a free restaurant in a community center in East Harlem. We could make a real impact if we could leverage fine dining expertise.

Jacobsen: How about the partnership with Eleven Madison Park? How did that influence operations and visibility at Rethink Food?

Jozwiak: The partnership with Eleven Madison Park is in my blood from working there. The way we work, attention to detail and quality are not commonly found in food from social services. People in social services are focused on simply getting meals out the door, not necessarily on how good the food is. So, that experience helped us speed up operations and improve the food quality.

Regarding visibility, Daniel Humm, who cofounded Rethink Food, has been instrumental in sharing our message and mentoring me.

Jacobsen: What is the process of transforming excess food into meals for underserved communities? Your focus isn’t on speed or bulk production but rather on detail while ensuring that you use the food properly.

Jozwiak: Yes. I don’t know how to explain this easily, Scott, because when people hear “excess food,” they tend to picture wilted lettuce or a bruised apple. But that’s not what we’re talking about. I once worked at four restaurants simultaneously—so I know how different restaurants can be regarding food quality and efficiency.

It’s really about connecting great restaurateurs with supply chain opportunities. Sometimes, we pay restaurants to use their excess food to prepare meals. Then, distribute those meals to community centers.

At our Sustainable Community Kitchen in Greenwich Village, we receive donations and excess ingredients. A good example is Eleven Madison Park’s famous mushroom dish. They use the core of the trumpet mushroom. We take the sides they don’t use, grind them up into a mushroom ragù, cool it down, stir in some pasta, and distribute it. There’s creativity involved, but surprisingly, the excess food in the supply chain is quite consistent.

Jacobsen: Is that consistency due to the techniques chefs use during food prep? Or does it have more to do with seasonality?

Jozwiak: Seasonality plays a significant role, yes.

So, in the springtime, you’ll see many mushrooms. In the fall, you’ll see a lot of squash, apples, and things like that. That’s just how the seasons flow. So, the excess type you’ll see is pretty consistent.

We also purchase much food. Our commitment is to the community centers—ensuring they have the best food possible. We buy a lot of starches and proteins, and then we leverage a lot of excess vegetables. For example, a weird-shaped eggplant that does not meet the visual standard for a dish might get donated. Or, if Trader Joe’s orders way too many red peppers, we’ll take those peppers and use them.

Jacobsen: Now, the big question—foundational to the entire concept of Rethink Food—is: why is there sufficient food insecurity in the United States to warrant organizations like yours? Why is food insecurity still so prevalent in a country where one might assume there’s enough to go around?

Jozwiak: Yes, absolutely. The core issue behind food insecurity is wealth inequality. That remains the main structural problem, particularly in cities like New York. Living costs here are astronomical, and wages have not kept up.

Whether minimum or subminimum, wages haven’t risen significantly since the 1990s. In New York, the minimum wage has increased to $16.50 an hour. But even if you’re earning $20 an hour, it’s still almost impossible to afford a one-bedroom apartment in the city.

We won’t pay your rent or cover your childcare. But if we can take care of lunch occasionally, we might save someone $30 or $40 a week, which can make a real difference.

Jacobsen: Are there any logistical challenges in sourcing and redistributing surplus food? You mentioned some of the technical issues earlier.

Jozwiak: Yes—absolutely. It’s a logistical and communications challenge at its core.

The main challenges include communicating what types of food can be donated, clarifying whether donating food is legal and safe, and ensuring that people actually let us know when they have food available. It’s an ongoing issue of inventory management and communication.

Jacobsen: How have high-profile chefs helped with visibility and raising awareness around food insecurity?

Jozwiak: They’ve done a great job. Daniel Humm has been the most impactful. What I appreciate about Daniel is that he’s truly taken the time to understand the issue. Before getting involved, he wanted to know the details.

Sometimes, when a high-profile chef posts on Instagram, “Everyone’s starving,” the issue can be exaggerated in ways that miss the deeper context. That kind of messaging can miss the forest for the trees.

But Daniel and Michael Schwartz in Miami also took the time to learn. For example, they found that approximately 40% of students at community colleges are food insecure. That’s the population we’re serving. So, their next question was: “All right, how do we address that, and why is that the case?”

Jozwiak: People often think about the bread lines of the Great Depression—but that’s not what’s happening. That image is outdated. The reality of food insecurity today is more hidden and nuanced.

Jacobsen: Are there any issues with maintaining the nutritional value of repurposed meals?

Jozwiak: Yes, absolutely. We adhere to pretty strict nutritional guidelines when preparing meals. To meet those standards, we often need to supplement with purchased food, especially to ensure proper amounts of protein, fibre, and micronutrients.

Jacobsen: What metrics do you use to measure your social and environmental impact?

Jozwiak: Oh, that’s a great question. We measure several things: carbon offsets, water savings—a big one for us—and our social impact.

Socially, we track the number of jobs we help support. Last year alone, we distributed about $51 million in direct payments to restaurants so they could prepare meals for local community centers. On average, every $20,000 helps support one job. It may not cover a full salary, but it does help create or sustain a hire.

Again, a lot of the challenge ties back to food insecurity and wealth inequality. Restaurant jobs are often frowned upon or overlooked. But I’ve only ever worked in restaurants, and I can tell you: if you need a job from 4 to 10 PM, you can get one. If you need a shift from 6 PM to 1 AM, you can find one. That’s the beauty of the industry—it offers flexibility.

It helps people juggle other things, like gig work or small businesses, find some consistency. You might be driving Uber in the morning, running an Amazon store, or doing freelance work. A restaurant job gives you structure and a steady income.

Another key thing we look at is family meals. If you’ve worked in restaurants, you remember family meals—those communal meals shared by staff before service. But in our context, Family Meal is also the name of New York City’s largest food nonprofit that no one talks about. It feeds more low—and middle-income New Yorkers than all the other nonprofits combined—by a factor of five.

Jacobsen: How do you see expanding your impact—not just in terms of doing more of what you’re doing, but also through deeper partnerships with local community organizations?

Jozwiak: Great question. Internally, we say we don’t scale; we grow. There’s a big difference.

Scaling is risky. You can unintentionally do harm if you try to apply one idea uniformly across vastly different communities—whether in New York, Miami, or elsewhere. Growth, on the other hand, means listening, learning, and adapting. We spend much time meeting with community leaders, asking questions like: “Do you need iftar meals at 9 PM during Ramadan?” If the answer is yes, we figure out how to make that happen—what food to provide, who to partner with, and how to do it respectfully.

Passover is coming up. We’re working with the Jewish community to provide kosher-for-Passover meals to older, homebound adults. That’s what growth looks like.

Jacobsen: And what would enable that kind of growth nationally?

Jozwiak: A tax credit. Right now, restaurants get a deduction for donating food—but that’s not helpful for a small LLC pulling in $1.6 million in revenue with just $4,000 in taxable income. A deduction barely moves the needle.

We need a tax credit—something with real value that incentivizes participation across the industry and supports small businesses that want to do the right thing.

Jozwiak: But if you get a tax deduction, even for a hundred thousand dollars, the actual financial benefit is minimal—especially for small businesses. But if you get a tax credit, that’s more or less a dollar-for-dollar value back. That’s a real incentive. So, we’re currently lobbying for a federal food donation tax credit to be included in the next Farm Bill.

Jacobsen: What about new technology? I’ve interviewed some people focused on using AI and automation to handle repetitive or mundane restaurant tasks—things like prep tracking or inventory sorting. The idea is to boost productivity. Can you envision incorporating something like that at Rethink Food to expand your current growth?

Jozwiak: Yes, for sure. We’re actively exploring several AI-driven solutions. As mentioned earlier, inventory management is a major challenge in our space. We’re working with a company that’s developed a system involving cameras placed over trash cans, which are also on scales. It tracks what gets thrown away and measures weight in real-time. That data helps us optimize ordering and reduce waste.

Inventory, ordering, and production efficiency are extremely difficult in restaurants—because so much is variable. If it suddenly starts raining, no one shows up. You could be over-prepared or under-resourced in a matter of hours. So AI has real potential to help smooth that unpredictability.

Also, communication is huge. It’s about saying, “Hey, we have this product available,” or “We’re out of that.” We run a lean operation. We’re one of the larger food nonprofits on the East Coast, and we get by with just 19 staff members. A traditional nonprofit of our size requires at least 50. We rely heavily on technology and tools to make that happen.

Jacobsen: What advice would you give someone looking to launch a similarly mission-driven initiative in the food space?

Jozwiak: My advice for anyone, regardless of age, would be this: focus on solving an actual problem. Don’t be a hammer in search of a nail. If there’s already an existing solution out there, support that. But if you see a gap, and you’ve done the research and confirmed that the problem is real and underserved, go all in.

When I started Rethink, nobody was picking up excess prepared meals or doing anything with them. So there was a nail, and I became the hammer. But make sure you’re addressing a real need. Be hard-headed and persistent.

And don’t go into this kind of work—especially in the restaurant or nonprofit world—to make yourself feel better. People sometimes get into philanthropy thinking, “I have a hole in my heart, and if I do good things, I’ll feel fulfilled.” That’s not enough. If you’re getting paid by a nonprofit, it’s a blessing and comes with responsibility. You must be mission-focused, vigilant, and hard-working—not just emotionally driven.

Jacobsen: What about public perception? Are there barriers you face, personally or as an organization—especially from people who might feel threatened or misunderstand what you’re doing?

Jozwiak: Absolutely. There are many challenges, some of them weird and frustrating. I work from 8 AM to 11 PM, five or six days a week. I’m married, and my wife is usually a little mad at me, to be honest. So yeah, there’s a personal toll. You could call it “married luck,” I guess.

On a broader level, it’s a communications challenge. People have this outdated idea that food insecurity is just about the guy on the corner holding a sign. But that’s often a mental health issue, not a food access issue. The people we’re trying to serve are working two jobs, attending school, or supporting families. They can’t afford basic, quality meals. That nuance is often lost in the public conversation.

Jozwiak: Most students cannot afford lunch on Saturdays—that’s our issue. The biggest challenges are related to communication and education. Once people understand the real nature of food insecurity, funding streams tend to open up, and people become excited to help. But the communications piece—the comms behind it—is often the hardest part.

Jacobsen: What’s your favourite chef quote?

Jozwiak: When I was cooking in France, I heard a quote from a chef that stuck with me—and I still believe in it. It’s a little long, but here it is:

“Be the last guy to leave the kitchen with the sous chef. The sous chef usually closes the kitchen. In the beginning, he’ll ask you to turn off the gas. The next day, he’ll ask you to check the walk-in and ensure it’s running. The next day, he’ll ask you to turn off all the electricity. And on the fourth day—he’ll get lazy. That’s the day you take his job.”

Jacobsen: That was a dry bar comedy moment with Matt Jozwiak. Thank you so much—I appreciate it. Nice to meet you.

Jozwiak: Yes, thanks so much, Scott. I appreciate the time. Enjoy your trip. It looks beautiful out there. I’m jealous—it’s gorgeous. Super gorgeous.

Jacobsen: It’s a little chilly, but it’ll warm up. Thank you, man.

Jozwiak: Thanks. Bye.

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