A new non-profit catering business in Regina is doing more than just preparing finger sandwiches and vegetable platters for business meetings. It is also preparing people with cognitive disabilities to join the workforce.
In 2015, Gwen Herman and Emily Tarr started Munch Catering with a goal of hiring and providing food services training to people with cognitive disabilities such as Down syndrome.
“I think the overall goal for munch we hire people with disabilities,” says Gwen Herman. “We also provide training so if they want to move into the community with employment after, they can get their food safety and they can build their employable skills with us.”
Working out of a kitchen at the Living Spirit Centre just off Arcola Avenue, Munch mainly caters lunches for businesses around the city.
Initially, the company just baked for craft sales and hired one cognitively-disabled person to help. But in early 2016 they launched the catering side of the business and now have approximately five employees with disabilities at any one time, all making around minimum wage and are looking to increase that amount.
Over the last couple of years, donations, fundraisers and word of mouth have helped Munch’s catering sales double. In that time orders have grown from around three or four per week to approximately seven.
“We’ve been growing at a small pace intentionally because we can only grow at our capacity,” says Herman. “We didn’t want to go crazy and not be able to fulfil the needs of our customers. But the goal now is to probably move to doing eight to 10 jobs per week.”
Munch is one of the few places in Regina that offers meaningful job training for people with cognitive disabilities. Because of this, as the business grows, the inquiries from people about job opportunities for their friends, families and clients with cognitive disabilities grows too.
This presents another kind of challenge for the Munch staff who want to train as many people as they can but due to the fluctuating plans of the employees, never know when positions will be opening up.
“Sometimes you train somebody for three months then they want to find a job in the community, but for some of our people it might take six months or a year,” says Herman. “One challenge we didn’t foresee was people would come with an expectation of training for three months and moving on but end up not wanting to leave because of the comfort and confidence they got working here.”
Recognized as a charity by the Canadian Revenue Agency, Munch has been partially reliant on charitable donations to keep them financially viable.
“One of our main challenges would be financial, just because we have to take our time,” says Herman, about the higher labour costs that come with both catering and training employees. “Because although they are paid, our employees with cognitive disabilities might take double the time to learn a skill.”
As a non-profit, all of the income has to be reinvested back into the company. For Munch, it’s all about increasing capacity. Herman says one of the ways they’ve been able to do this was to spend money on a professional website which has increased their client numbers.
The company’s menu includes veggie and fruit platters, six different types of sandwiches and wraps, an assortment of in-house baked muffins and loaves, homemade soups, salads and an assortment of hot lunch options including taco in a bag and pulled pork, among other options.
The long-term goal for Munch is to build enough capacity to get out of their rented kitchen and get their own space to open a Monday to Friday cafe.
“We’d probably keep catering but part of our goal for having a permanent location would be to also build that community,” says Herman. “To have people who have been there before, and create a sort of a community environment around the cafe.”
