City Fresh Cooks Up Thousands Of Meals For Students, Seniors In Need
BOSTON (CBS) - Step inside City Fresh's kitchen and you'll find a busy operation. Beside the stove, cooks tend to a bubbling kettle of Asian curry. Meanwhile, a line of workers package vegetables and sandwiches.
"We're doing a Caribbean menu, a Vietnamese menu, a Portuguese menu, a vegetarian menu," said City Fresh Foods CEO Sheldon Lloyd. "It starts early in the morning, the kitchen opens up about 430 am, we call that the engine room."
That engine room keeps the Roxbury caterer running like a well-oiled machine, with more than 100 employees helping crank out over 15,000 meals a day. The food is individually packaged and picked up by drivers, who then deliver the meals to over 60 YMCA sites and thousands of seniors in need. City Fresh is hired by non-profits, allowing the meals to be provided for free.
"We have a lot of families and a lot of youth who need meals throughout the course of the week," said Tim Baymon, director of operations at the Roxbury YMCA. "It's important we continue to provide that option for them."
Robert Rich lives in senior housing and says the deliveries are convenient and give him peace of mind. "I don't have to go anywhere they're brought to me. I appreciate that, I'm always looking forward [it]," Rich said.
Born out of a need for access to fresh foods in urban areas, City Fresh is the brainchild of Glynn Lloyd. And what started out as a market outside Franklin Park in the 90s, has evolved into a state of the art 14,000 square foot facility, that provides home-style nutritious meals. Their mission is now more critical than ever.
"We always did a large volume but now it's increased. The demand for home delivered meals to seniors and students and now families," said Sheldon.
At the Roxbury YMCA, grab and go lunch and breakfast meals bridge the gap for the thousands of students out of school. "A lot of families are out work, a lot of our families aren't able to provide as much as they would. This is an opportunity for us as a community to come together," said Baymon.
