Community kitchen cooperatives involve a group of involved individuals, like friends or neighbors, who split up shopping and cooking responsibilities to save time, money and add variety to their meals. Sharing meals helps reduce waste and increases access to healthy homemade meals every day.

In some kitchen cooperatives, participants trade homemade staples like hummus and chili for meals or other home cooked items. It takes planning and organization to create a kitchen cooperative but the payoff is delicious diverse meals without food waste.

Community kitchens are an incredibly accessible model to add variety to your weekly meals, connect to community through shared meals with family or friends, and decrease your impulse for costly and wasteful takeout dinners. Scheduled well, you may be able to eat more home-cooked meals despite your busy week, and save money on takeout for those days you were too busy to cook.

Check out this guide for inspiration and tips to start your own community kitchen!

Learn more about Food Shift and their programs to rescue surplus food that would otherwise waste away in landfills and utilize it to fuel their social enterprise kitchen.