Celebrity Chef and Restaurateur Jose Andres wants to Feed the Nation’s Hungry and put Restaurants back to work

Chef José Andrés’ nonprofit World Central Kitchen is continuing to fight on the frontlines of the coronavirus crisis. In a new interview with the Washington Post, Andrés said that WCK’s Chefs for America is launching a new initiative that will pay restaurants to reopen and serve meals to people in need, while also letting laid-off employees get back to work. According to the article, the nonprofit will pay restaurant owners $10 to $20 per meal, allowing them to rehire staff and pay for ingredients. “This is only a drop in the water,” Andrés told the Post.

In early April, the chef and humanitarian announced that once his restaurants reopened, doctors and nurses would eat for free for the rest of the year. In the meantime, he’s turned many of his New York and D.C. restaurants into relief kitchens. WCK has opened sites around the country that are offering free meals to healthcare workers, laid-off hospitality workers, and low-income communities. Nate Mook, chief executive of WCK, told the Post, “The only thing that’s really going to save the system is the system going back to work. The restaurants going back to work. The staff going back, getting a paycheck. The restaurants buying from the suppliers that are also impacted by this. You got to get the whole machine going again because you can’t just have these Band-Aid solutions.”

And now a bipartisan group of lawmakers on Tuesday introduced a bill supported by celebrity chef José Andrés aimed at helping restaurants and feeding vulnerable populations during the coronavirus pandemic. The FEMA Empowering Essential Deliveries (FEED) Act would have the federal government pay 100 percent of the cost for state and local governments to work with restaurants and nonprofits to prepare meals for populations including seniors and underprivileged children.  It would also aim to provide support for businesses and farmers as both struggle during the economic downturn caused by the pandemic.

Reps. Mike Thompson (D-Calif.), Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) and Rodney Davis (R-Ill.) and Sens. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) and Tim Scott (R-S.C.) are partnering to introduce the legislation, they announced in a statement. Harris, a former 2020 Democratic presidential candidate, celebrated the bill as a way to address increasing food insecurity and support the restaurant and supplier industries.  “We need to ensure that states have maximum flexibility so that no one goes hungry during this pandemic,” she said in a statement. Local partnerships would allow food to be distributed more quickly during the pandemic, Davis said.  “If this pandemic has shown us anything, it’s the need to innovate and that’s exactly what the FEED Act does,” he said.

As if all that that weren’t enough, Andrés has announced that a documentary about WCK and his hunger relief efforts is currently in production. Directed by Ron Howard for National Geographic Documentary Films, the doc will “follow Andres and his team around the globe as they address the increasing environmental and humanitarian crises that devastate our world the best way they know how: through food.”

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