Circular Table Break Down Part 2.

"What the Kale"

So we left off with money being deposited. What next?

Before anything else, I had to nail down the legality, and from the jump, I was intentional about running as clean as possible. Not because I didn't know it was legal, but because I knew my end goal was always going back to city, county, and state with this model. Any questions about safety needed to already have an answer.

And in Los Angeles, where cities within the city operate under their own governance, that wasn't simple. A place we wanted to use in Pasadena had its own requirements on top of state and county. It was a special manager's license through a ServSafe program, a certification beyond standard food handler cards. We got all of it. Even the small stuff mattered. Food can't sit on the ground even if it's packaged. There's a specific height requirement. Dry storage rules. Cold storage rules. Allergy protocols. How frequently gloves are changed in the kitchen. Waste management rules such as what goes to compost, what gets recycled, what's trash. Our oils came in bottles. That's a recycling conversation. It sounds minor until it isn't.

We checked every box. Because cutting corners on a pilot you want to scale is just borrowing trouble.

Now time for a recovery partner

Someone already operating inside the surplus food system, already connected to the grocery stores that SB 1383 required to have food recovery partners. Going around them to set up our own grocery store MOUs didn't make sense. We weren't planning to stay in this lane long term, and I needed access to at least a thousand pounds of produce at a time to even test the model. A few bakery pickups weren't going to cut it.

I identified who I wanted to work with the next day after money dropped.

Then I waited six weeks for a response. I eventually tracked down someone who used to sit on their board just to find out where the CEO was. Turns out she was on leave. I got connected to someone else in the c-suite, and we finally got moving. Even then, it took almost three months before we were actually working together. They moved slowly. But the partnership made sense, so I stayed patient — while keeping my eyes open.

And then we needed a kitchen

The food recovery partner had a kitchen on-site. We met there, looked at the space, no real freezer to speak of. And they could only lease to one organization at a time anyway. Dead end.

They pointed me to a youth center around the corner. I showed up, stood outside a gate, and a guy came out, talked to me through the fence, handed me his card, and told me to reach out...He ghosted me.

So I started searching commercial kitchens. Restrictive hours. Crazy pricing. And then there was the one lady — who, once word got out about what I was doing, was charging me two to three times what she'd charged other food businesses when they were starting out. Someone who knew her actually texted her directly while I was standing there. Essentially said "I know for a fact you're not taking advantage of her. She's a nonprofit." It still didn't do anything.

Every door that closed was data. It was narrowing the path.

Then I found an org on TikTok, yes, TikTok, preparing meals at mass scale. I reached out. It felt perfect. They had the kitchen, the volunteers, the infrastructure. The vision was simple: route surplus produce to them, they prepare the meals, we handle distribution.

I went and volunteered so I could see operations firsthand. The energy was good. We worked out the details. Their biggest reservation was delivery. They wanted a central location, not individual drops to families. And honestly, once we looked at what individual delivery actually required (drivers using personal vehicles, liability questions, temperature control logs, specific bags, people's home addresses) we understood. So we found a central pickup model. One location. Organized distribution. Families come to us. Everything was in place. We were just waiting on the MOU.

One week before launch...

Yall they bailed. No real explanation. Just out. And had the nerve to suggest I come volunteer some more and donate to their organization.

A day later my phone was going off. Why? The federal government paused food stamps. Funny because I called it in January.

What the kale.

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Key Takeaways

• Nail down the legality before you need it — not because you don't know it's legal, but because your end goal is always the institution

• The small stuff is the big stuff — glove changes, food height off the ground, waste sorting. The details are the credibility

• Every door that closes is data — the ghost, the price gouger, the kitchen with no freezer. Each one narrowed the path to the right answer

• TikTok is a legitimate research tool — find people doing the work, reach out, don't be precious about where the lead comes from

• Vet before you commit — don't partner for the sake of a name or a logo. Go see the operations yourself. Get in the room. Your reputation travels with your partners whether you meant it to or not

• Protect yourself on paper — agreements, insurance, facility coverage. A good heart doesn't protect your nonprofit in court

• Slow partners don't always mean wrong partners, but don't be naive — you're dating, not married. Vet continuously. Patience can become a liability and missed money

• The system will pull the rug — a bailed partner and a federal food stamp pause in the same week isn't bad luck. It's the environment you're operating in. Build accordingly

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