Apples & Wages in the Tenderloin

Apples & Wages from Team UC Berkeley

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We are a team from UC Berkeley and our proposal is to create a program, called Apples & Wages, that addresses food insecurity by providing fresh produce at an affordable price and increases employment with a transitional job training program that offers skill development and employment experience in the food service/sales/preparation sector. We have attached 6 documents to this submission that details the business model, implementation, and projected impact of this pilot project.

Our proposal would help fund the construction of a central kitchen where fresh food could be prepared into healthy meals and then sent throughout the Tenderloin on carts. The city would help obtain food cart permits and additional funding support. The opportunity to run the program would be offered to Tenderloin food justice and employment non-profits in the area via a competitive process. The organization or consortium of organizations that best utilizes its existing relationship with the neighborhood and best demonstrates a strong vision to reduce food insecurity and unemployment will be awarded with the program.

The carts could be located in a number of places in the Tenderloin, but must meet certain codes when stationary. We have come up with a few intersections that would be ideal for our food stands by being both code-applicable places and areas close to high density SRO hotels. We used demand optimization analyses to demonstrate how to be financially efficient and to estimate how much our program would cost to operate.

The Tenderloin struggles with high unemployment and low food security. A program like Apples & Wages could help ensure that Tenderloin residents had access to healthy fresh affordable food and that residents who have fallen on hard times had another pathway towards economic independence and stability.

For further information, please contact Rebecca at rhui@berkeley.edu.