Seema Sanghavi: At Cooks Who Feed We Ethically Produce Kitchen Textiles With a Give-back Model, Providing Meals To Alleviate Hunger

At Cooks Who Feed we ethically produce kitchen textiles with a give-back model, providing meals to alleviate hunger.

Our flagship product, our handcrafted aprons, provides 100 meals for every apron sold. We do this by sharing our profits with charity partners around the globe that recover surplus food to reduce food waste and provide hunger relief.

To date, we’ve provided over half a million meals. All our textiles are handmade in India where we provide safe, fair trade work to marginalized women.

Tell us about yourself?

With respect to my education, I have an undergraduate and masters degree in businesses, however, this is not the reason why I decided to start Cooks Who Feed.

I’m a foodie. To me, there’s nothing better than great food with great conversation. Because of my love of food, it’s always bothered me to know that so many go to bed hungry and do not get to experience food the way that I do.

I’ve been lucky enough to travel and live in different continent and I’ve seen first hand that hunger is everywhere. Once I started learning about how much food is being wasted every year, I felt compelled to get involved and be part of the solution.

Did you know that the amount of food we waste could feed the entire world’s hungry four times over?

If you could go back in time a year or two, what piece of advice would you give yourself?

It’s normal to be scared and doubt your capabilities, but don’t let that stop you or slow you down. Fear is a part of life so don’t let it stop you from doing what you want to do. Turn your fear into excitement for the unknown.

What problem does your business solve?

At Cooks Who Feed, our mission is to fight hunger.

What is the inspiration behind your business?

The women in India who make our textiles inspired me to start Cooks Who Feed.

In 2016, I was in Dehli attending a friend’s wedding, when I heard about a local non-governmental organization (NGO) that was training women to be seamstresses and placing them in jobs at a fair wage.

Upon meeting them, I instantly felt compelled to help. I wanted to get involved so more women could have this opportunity.

Getting ahead of myself, I told them I would start something and work with them exclusively. I had no idea what we were going to produce. I just knew I should do something. I now work with the same NGO to produce our textiles.

Since starting Cooks Who Feed, our goal is to be the kitchen textile brand for the conscious cook.

What is your magic sauce?

What makes our different is our story, our impact. There is a social benefit in every step of the process.

From the moment the fabric hits the sewing machine to the time it ends up in your kitchen, our eco-friendly apron has employed poor women, fed their families, reduced food waste, and provided 100 nutritious meals to the hungry. That’s a lot for one apron.

What is the plan for the next 5 years? What do you want to achieve?

Our vision is to create a hunger-free world. We want to unite food lovers so that together we can end hunger. Within the next year, we want to be able to provide at least 1 million meals per year.

What is the biggest challenge you’ve faced so far?

Like so many other businesses, the pandemic has really affected our business. The biggest challenge was pausing our production due to lockdowns in India.

We also struggled with sales during the pandemic since hospitality businesses, those who require aprons to operate, were not in a position to work with us.

We tackled this by working with home builders and realtors since our aprons make great housewarming gifts and we can customize our textiles to incorporate a business’s branding.

How do people get involved/buy into your vision?

Go to CooksWhoFeed.com and purchase one of our textiles. Everyone needs an apron and our kitchen linens are lovely as well. We also have aprons for children. One purchase creates a lot of impact.