Cambridge Food Lab (CFL)

Fighting Poverty In The United States While Developing Smart Kitchens For Great Jobs

The Cambridge Food Lab (CFL) fixes two problems:

Problem A: In 2012, the U.S. Restaurant Association released a study concluding that about 65% of new restaurants that opened in the U.S. closed within two - three years due to the lack of business skills of restaurant entrepreneurs. For this reason, the restaurant industry has been branded as a 'high-risk'.  These failed ventures become community tragedies, since about 30 families depend on each restaurant. Besides the loss of employment, the large financial damage affects not only restaurant owners but also their investors, which are mostly family members and friends, since traditional investor don't invest in restaurants. Most of them are minorities aiming to get out of poverty. Solution A: CFL is a hybrid non-profit / for profit entity that teaches food entrepreneurs the following four business skills; 1. Regulatory compliance with local and state regulations and permits. 2. Financial literacy 3. Marketing & branding 4. Operations. 

Problem B: Lack of living wage jobs for the low-income Cambridge community. In 2015, the Cambridge Redevelopment Authority released a study called K2C2, that demonstrated that about 17% of Cambridge residents live under the poverty line. Most Cambridge residents living in poverty are residents of housing projects. Solution B: The CFL is looking to develop a restaurant called Taco Nation that will pay about 30% more for entry-level jobs than the regular restaurant industry, increasing from the standard $11/ h to $16/h after three months of employment. In this way, it will share the restaurant profits with the local community, as well as the non-profit (CFL). Taco Nation is still a work in progress since we are looking for funding for our restaurant. However, we already started working and helping local food entrepreneurs.

Taco Nation; CFL Unique Financial Self-Sufficiency Tool: CFL make a point of its own financial self-sufficiency as a way to set a model for stakeholders and the community. For this CFL is fundraising to own a restaurant, Taco Nation, to develop revenue for the CFL and jobs for Cambridge’s low-income community. Taco Nation will follow a restaurant business model that has proven very successful in college markets: Mexican / Burrito, fast casual. This model, at the local level, emulates the successful Anna’s and Beantown Taquerias that sell large volumes of fresh, fast, healthy, and affordable food to young professionals and college students. Such restaurants gross about $1.5 -3 million per year, with profits of between 25%- 40%. Our restaurant model is the result of a survey, with a sample of over 600 subjects, executed outside the Kendall, Central, Harvard, Porter, and Davis Red Line T stops, in which respondents identified 'Burrito Places' as their first choice. 

How do we scale?  Since poverty now is widespread in the United States, our proposal is to create a model of the CFL that is repeatable in other cities in the United States and focuses on serving poor communities, particularly immigrants and low-income women.

The uniqueness of our food incubator is that we are aiming to develop a NGO that is fully financially self-sufficient. Unlike other organizations, our proposal is based on covering our own expenses while most social entrepreneurial ventures / non profits depend on grants and donations to fund their operations. With Taco Nation, we can easily develop around 300K to run CFL operations. The CFL and Taco Nation are a hybrid non-profit / for-profit organization. Both entities will be under the 501c3 status of the Cambridge Food Lab, meaning the Cambridge Food Lab owns Taco Nation. 

-E-commerce engines

-Multiple marketing online, social media tools to develop and retain new markets

-Toast: a technology developed by MIT graduates. Toast is a point of sale system, used by restaurant operators to manage payroll, inventory, accounts receivables and payables 

-Develop and introduce new technologies to the kitchen

-The promotions of the usage of new technologies among entrepreneurs not experienced with technology

1. To help six food entrepreneurs with the needed business skills, about 180 - 200 families affected. This without having our restaurant incubator. 

2. To raise the needed funds to open our restaurant.

3. To produce our first annual Boston International Food Film Festival

1. To fully develop the first Cambridge Food Lab incubator, including our first restaurant Taco Nation

2. To have a 2nd location in progress in another major US city

We have an extensive marketing and communications campaign that targets new food entrepreneurs with the intention to motivate them to apply to our programs. The demand for this service is large and we have an application process that pre-selects entrepreneurs. Our selection criteria is based on their experience and amount of available resources. 

We are currently working with three entrepreneurs.

The nature of our model is to serve a small number of entrepreneurs that will affect the lives of hundreds of people per business. We are aiming to work with about 20 - 25 entrepreneurs per year, affecting the lives of 600 -750 families. 

Our expectation is to serve about 20 - 25 entrepreneurs per year, affecting the lives of 600 -750 families. 

Ideally we are looking to grow in other US cities with dense low income communities.

Jose Barriga, Founder / Director. Jose is a serial social entrepreneur: Viceversa Communications (www.latinoad.com), the CFL (www.cambridgefoodlab.com), the Boston Latino Film Festival (www.bliff.org), and the Boston International Food Film Festival (www.foodfilm.org). He worked for multiple non-profits and healthcare providers in senior management and consulting, communications, and outreach to minorities in the United States. He holds a BA in Social Psychology (URP - Lima) and pursued coursework in communications at UCLA and regulatory affairs (drugs & healthcare) at Northeastern University. Jose is also a trained chef (Cordon Bleu) and holds a certificate in political campaign organizing (IDCL) from Suffolk University.

Our revenue model is based on a restaurant that generates revenue (about $300k/year) to run CFL operations. This estimate does not even take into consideration the potential revenue generated from other sources like catering, classes, space rentals, grants, etc. As explained above, Taco Nation is the result of a survey of about 600 young professionals and millennials about their preference for food bought everyday or most days as a need, not as a culinary experience. One of the great branding assets of Taco Nation is its appeal as a non-profit related restaurant, which our communications team will emphasize with customers interested in buying food from us or catering events with us. Our costumers will know they are investing their food dollars in the community that is hosting them, Cambridge. Millennials are notoriously cause-driven consumers. Also, our approach to catering will heavily target the wealthy Kendall Sq. business community. Over 700 biotech, pharmaceutical and technology companies are based in Cambridge. 
From the social entrepreneurial perspective, we aren’t looking to 'reinvent the wheel' but to work with already successful business models. Our approach is to develop similar models, improve and adapt them to the current needs of the communities we serve.  

We believe that working and partnering with Solve will help us to connect with resources to scale and multiply the Cambridge Food Lab model in multiple cities and communities in the U.S. -- communities in need of tools to develop their ventures into successful businesses. The U.S. restaurant industry employs about 15 million people, most of them underpaid minorities. Another benefit developed from working with Solve will be access to the MIT campus resources since we, CFL and Solve/MIT, are located in the same geographical area. 

The restaurant industry has been stigmatized due to a study released by the U.S. Restaurant Association. This study concluded that about 65% of new restaurants opening in the U.S. closed within two or three years because of the lack of business skills of restaurant entrepreneurs. This has resulted in consistent rejection from the investment community, leaving not only food entrepreneurs but also the millions working and depending on this industry (mostly minorities) at the mercy of unexpected circumstances. We believe that working and partnering with Solve will help us to validate our organization and the restaurant industry.