An Industry Insight: Genuine Foods' Focus on Cultural Relevancy
When I founded Genuine Foods, we had one specific goal in mind: deliver fresh, high-quality, culturally relevant foodservice programs to K-12 schools, higher education, seniors and communities nationwide at competitive prices.
And while fresh, quality food is an essential part of our company and its services, it is the culturally relevant portion of our food mission that is so often misunderstood or underappreciated.
Food is an incredibly important part of our society, and its consumption and production play key roles in our ideas and attitudes. Not only that, food serves as the center of our cultural heritage. Food and food traditions are what link generations long past to those that gather around the table today. It’s a celebrated shared link across family members and communities. Food has the ability to represent, and sometimes create, culture.
What I’ve seen in my time traveling around the country, visiting schools and communities, is just how unique food culture can be region by region, yet so often what makes each culture special is ignored by food providers. Meal offerings, ingredients, styles of preparation and ways of eating are all strongly associated with a community’s ideas and beliefs. If ingredients required in certain cultural dishes are unavailable, many in the community will either adapt or settle for what is affordable - which may not be a healthy alternative. Adaptation often involves the adoption of a more harmful food culture: the Standard American Diet (SAD), which elevates consumption of processed, cheap convenience foods.