Second Harvest Heartland, the Twin Cities food bank, began Minnesota Central Kitchen as a pandemic aid program. Its goal was to provide prepared meals to community members in need and to offer local restaurants a way to continue supporting their employees during a time when restaurants were closing.

As this program developed, Second Harvest partnered with Channel One Food Bank in Rochester and Second Harvest Northern Lakes in Duluth to expand beyond the Twin Cities and provide more meals to people facing hunger.

Our network partners at Feeding America have seen the success of this program and will be funding its expansion past state borders. As such, the name “Minnesota Central Kitchen” needed to change to reflect the ever-growing number of partners addressing hunger throughout the United States.

Together with our partners at Second Harvest Heartland, Channel One has built a network of local restaurants and caterers who turn food bank ingredients into nutritious, freshly prepared meals. Then, trusted nonprofits get those meals to neighbors on a predictable schedule. We know that not everyone facing hunger has the home, health, or ability to use the groceries our food bank offers. In order to continue addressing this gap, our Kitchen Coalition partners serve up culturally connected, freshly prepared meals and a whole new way to fight hunger.

Thank you to our community partners for working with Channel One to address food insecurity. If you would like to get involved as either a production restaurant or distribution partner, please contact Dylan Weissenborn at dylanweissenborn@channel-one.org