Page 29 - MENU Magazine - March/April 2018

MARKETING
FOR
HOW FOODSERVICE OPERATORS ARE CONNECTING COMMUNITIES, COMBATING FOOD SCARCITY AND RAISING FUNDS
BY CAELI MAZARA
CHANGE
Initiatives within the foodservice industry create social and economic opportu- nities for Canadians. Finding a way to give back can be a huge undertaking or a small shift in the way your company does business. It can come in the form of a shipping container, or a pop-up, or an auction paddle. Whatever such movements
look like, they help stir others into action and bring communities together.
Building Roots
A brightly-painted storage container on Toronto’s Queen Street East announces the Moss Park Market, the heart of the Building Roots program. Building Roots was founded by Lisa Kates and Darcy Higgins in 2013 around the perceived scarcity of fresh food in a city where green space is disappearing. Higgins has a background with food advocacy group Food Forward, and Kates got her start in catering—making soup out of Toronto’s Depan- neur kitchen space—and working with at-risk youth. When the Moss Park neighbour- hood saw its main supermarket close, Kates and Higgins recognized an opportunity.
“The residents had concerns about how they were going to access fresh, a ordable food,” says Kates. “Moss Park is overlooked. There is nothing happening there, and we thought we could help. It was our idea to have a shipping container as a grocery store right in Moss Park. It is the rst ever shipping-container grocery store in Canada.”
Funding was the rst challenge. Building Roots received a generous donation from The Daniels Corporation; an insulated, heated and powered storage container from Storstac;
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