Sharing 70,000 Meals With Local Neighborhoods

With a passion for building communities and wanting to do our part in eliminating food waste, Flagship began a partnership earlier this year with A La Carte, a California Bay Area-based organization that donates and distributes food to schools, churches and community centers.

Through a trained staff and small fleet of refrigerated trucks, A La Carte offers no-cost, convenient meal deliveries for those in need, reaching over 1 million meal donations each year.

Flagship was eager to join the cause in March 2019, first piloting the program with two café locations to ensure food safety protocols were effective and aligned between the two partners. Within three weeks of piloting the new donation program and process, the culinary team had served 5,700 meals to the surrounding community. The momentum from there was unstoppable, and by September of 2019, 15 of Flagship’s Bay Area cafes were providing weekly meal donations.

The food items vary each day, due to our cafes’ daily-changing-menus, but the quality and freshness remain consistent. Whenever possible, ingredients are organic and locally derived, but the meals are always hand-prepared from scratch by our team of talented cooks and chefs.

At the end of September, Flagship had proudly served over 70,000 meals and was working to expand the partnership to two additional Bay Area locations, as well as café locations in Boston and Seattle.

The leftover food, which otherwise would be disposed of, now fills the bellies of thousands while our participation in the A La Carte program continues to fill our hearts. Winning the fight against food waste has never felt better!