Our Mission: We will change the way the world eats. One clean, organic meal per low income child, one event at a time.
What is the market size and magnitude of this opportunity? The needs of the Baltimore and Washington DC areas are similar to the struggles of cities nationwide. A nationwide launch is possible after our test market continues to collect data in Baltimore and Washington DC. The projected market is in the millions.
The Problem: There is a lack of clean comfort food that is not processed. There is also a lack of authentic New Orleans creole cuisine in the Baltimore/DC area. There is a lack of resources teaching low income children how to cook healthy meals for themselves and siblings that they care for while parents are away from the home. Big business is trying to suck the life blood out of small, rural and urban farms. They need consistent support from small and large businesses through easy access to their products.
What is Bent's product and how does it solve the problem? We provide clean, organic comfort food for catered events (with proceeds used to feeding hungry children and teach them to cook) or as individual meals served to the public through pop-ups and farmers markets. We utilize students from local culinary schools to teach them how to become culinary entrepreneurs with a focus on serving the community. With the work that we do, we give back to the community by teaching children (through long-term cooking classes) how to cook meals that do not come in a package. We focus on educating children about the importance of eating as much unprocessed food as they can. We take them to shop for food at local farmer's markets and teach them the importance and affordability of buying local organic food. Many have been told that organic food is outside of their reach. Many are handed backpacks of food at school to get them through the weekends that contain nothing but processed food under the guise of something healthy. We give them a budget and we burst the bubble of that myth! We then teach them how to cook what they bought. If we teach them young enough, it's a positive cycle that can be implemented for life.
Why are we seeking funding? We need your funding to hire chefs, procure a larger space, obtain equipment that allows us to scale for profit portion of the business within growth projections, commission branding and software to facilitate an easier way for our target audience to find us, and allocate more funds that allows to train more children to buy, cook, and eat healthy. Technology is the wave of now, not the future, and we need to get onboard or be left at the train station.
Our Team:
Executive Chef/Head of Executives - Lana Parker Browner
Executive Chef - Bobby Browner
Additional Staff:
1 Sous Chef/Culinary Intern
2 part-time chefs in training/servers