BLACK CULINARIAN ALLIANCE INC
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Mission Statement
Our Mission is to empower BIPOC individuals in the food system, including the food service industry, through a framework of mindfulness, sustainability, social justice, and food sovereignty and help forge meaningful connections to further our vision of a beloved community. Our program focus is on food systems, food insecurity, farm innovation, food as medicine and using culinary research and development to combat hunger and food waste.
About This Cause
The BCA was born in 1998 when co-founder Alex Askew and Jason Wallace met with fellow graduates of the Culinary Institute of America. A few years later, the First BCA Alumni Chapter at the Culinary Institute of America was formed. Since then, the organization has been tasked with analyzing and addressing the lack of education and exposure for African Americans in the industry. Focusing on education as a cornerstone of success, BCAGlobal (founded as the Black Culinarian Alliance) advocated for improvements in career development in a demographic that has largely been sidelined from culinary, food service, and hospitality mid and upper management opportunities. For over 30 years BCAGlobal has focused on the importance of diversity authenticity which is defined as recognizing one's cultural heritage as a critical component in diversity conversation. In 2010, the organization expanded its demographic focus to promote not only people of color but to increase diversity overall and develop women as industry leaders. Today, BCAGlobal continues its efforts and advises entities all over the world on ways to achieve success in these areas. Together we are reaching beyond the borders of the United States and developing connections in a variety of cultural and culinary hubs worldwide. Nearly thirty years of work in the food space as an activist organization has shown us that food has transformative power. It can bring about health and wellness in individuals, communities, and the environment itself. To harness this positive power, BCA has developed a program that employs a mindful, holistic approach to food to promote healthy communities. It aims to create food equity through food literacy, sharing a meal from the earth, and making mindful food choices. Mindful Eating for the Beloved Community, has its roots in centuries old practices that allowed communities of color to survive and thrive over millennia. MEBC can now motivate food professionals and chefs towards community food-activism with an awareness of cultural sensitivities as they promote healthy and whole communities through food literacy and participatory learning. The Mindful Eating for the Beloved Community is an initiative to empower individuals and communities to address the health challenges that have their roots in the social determinants of health, (SDOH). SODH are the conditions in the environments where people are born, live, learn, work, play, worship, and age that affect a wide range of health, functioning, and quality-of-life outcomes and risks. Collaborating with nutrition professionals, mindful health advocates, chefs, agriculture and food systems experts, we will create a platform for the organization to accomplish its mission of forming powerful collectives for systemic change. Through educational awareness programming we will continue to expand the landscape and footprint of building replicable models for social change. Low‐income communities often lack basic resources such as access to affordable fruits and vegetables and the knowledge of their nutritional values which compounds their risk factors for chronic disease. This lack of food literacy and access to healthy food choices while bad enough is just part of the problem. Over the last century, traditional healthy eating habits were abandoned when social changes such as migration and poverty upended people’s lives. As people moved to cities and urban centers, fast-food chains in low-income neighborhoods pushed the consumption of processed food and many chain supermarkets fled to more suburban areas leaving food deserts for local residents. MEBC’s purpose is to reconnect communities with food that is a source of health and empowerment rather than food that is a source of disease and depletion. It will be a part of a grassroots movement toward a new paradigm: eating as an expression of dignity, identity, self-respect, and empowerment. BCA believes that food equity, a meal shared with loved ones, and informed food choices will change behaviors that impact physical, social, and environmental wellbeing. Over the last 3 years BCA has impacted over 1000 persons with an impactful and sustainable approach in over 6 cities and US Territories of the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico.