We’ve Over-Individualized Food. What Happens If We Re-Collectivize It?

Another Food for Thought

As I began moving through the morning, I unintentionally started thinking about a grant webinar I sat in on about reducing at-home food waste. I tuned out at times because it was heavily behavior-focused and came with strict restrictions on how funds could be used. Honestly, I’m not that big on behavior-change-first approaches. I think it’s important, but I also know my zone of genius.

While some people were focused on “teaching better recipes,” I thought about how Circular Table showed me something different. We often assume people have the time to cook, when in reality cooking can become a multi-hour process once you account for prep, storage, and cleanup.

I left that webinar deciding it probably wasn’t for me.

Here I am a few weeks later thinking about apartment complexes that have shared community rooms with kitchens inside them.

• Culinary students or newer chefs could lead group prep sessions so residents can take food back and freeze what they don’t need immediately.

• If you can’t attend, you could still drop off ingredients and pick them up later prepared.

Wait, at that point, isn’t it just large-scale food prep?

Then I thought, what if we layer in communal purchasing?

• Whether bulk stores or even direct farm sourcing, we would see a reduction in grocery costs per person.

You could also layer in upcycling principles from Circular Table to turn scraps into snacks or beverages so nothing gets wasted.

But what about people who don’t live in buildings with onsite kitchens?​​ That is a luxury after all. 

You could argue they could do this anywhere, but then you introduce health regulations, uneven cleanliness standards, pets, and a lot of variability. And honestly, that starts to break the model. That said, I’m not against people doing this informally with friends or family. I just think scale changes the rules.

Hmm. 

Underutilized spaces. 

Schools, for example, often have kitchens that sit unused on weekends, holidays, and breaks. There would likely be resistance in activating them, but not impossibility. And I’m not saying people shouldn’t cook. I’m saying we should design systems that answer: “What would this person do during their busiest week of the year?”

I believe behavior change works best when the desired action is simple, obvious, and supported by the surrounding system.

The biggest challenge is likely coordination. 

• Who organizes it?

• Who pays?

• What about food safety?

• Liability?

• Frequency?

• Participation thresholds?

Fair concerns, but still investigate. 

Historically, shared food economies weren’t unusual. Not necessarily communes or formal co-ops, but groups pooling purchasing power, labor, storage, and knowledge. It’s interesting how many “new” sustainability ideas are actually rediscovery of older systems.

A thought that made me go hmm...

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