Passionate Leaders for Food and Kids

Behind every successful company is a team of committed individuals with their own unique ambitions, talents and, well, idiosyncrasies. Our team at CKC Good Food has been working with a leadership development expert to better understand one another and learn how we may improve the way we work together to provide the best service to our clients.

As part of that process, we explored our shared values, defined the company's values and crafted our new mission statement/tagline:

Passionate leaders for food and kids

It may seem simple and obvious to those of you who weren't a part of the many discussions that resulted in that short phrase. Part of the challenge was, ironically, we are passionate and we are leaders. Thankfully, the leadership development work we had done prior to starting on the mission statement helped us be more open minded to the views of our colleagues.

This new mission statement captures the true DNA of CKC Good Food:

• Passionate: We are passionate about our work and our clients, which both give us the opportunity to invest ourselves deeply into nutrition and the culinary scene to benefit kids.
• Leaders: For nearly 30 years, CKC Good Food has been at the forefront of the Twin Cities school food service industry. We led the way in creating delicious USDA-compliant menus after the implementation of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act in 2012. We introduced online ordering for our clients long before it became mainstream. We go well beyond the minimum menu rotations and expand our menus often to keep school food interesting for students and to incorporate the latest food trends. We are the company others imitate.
• Food: Good food is at the heart of CKC Good Food. We grew out of a restaurant/hospitality company, which excelled at delighting our customers with incredible meals and an overall pleasurable experience. Our executive chef and her team of chefs call upon their extensive culinary knowledge of flavors, ingredients, pairings and trends as well as unmatched insight into the taste preferences and nuances of children to devise menus that rival restaurants.
• Kids: At the end of the day, we do what we do because we want to provide the most delicious, nutritious food to help kids learn and grow. Many of the children we serve come from households described as "food insecure." Our meals served to them at school or in an out-of-school enrichment program are likely the only good nutrition they receive. We owe it to them to provide them our best.

Photo: Nathaniel Tetteh on unsplash