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2020 was the year that nobody saw coming: the pandemic hit, and for a moment it felt like the world had stopped. Like other restaurants, we were forced to make the difficult decision to close our doors in order to keep our staff and community safe.
In an effort to keep up morale, and support our team throughout this crisis, we decided to launch monthly food boxes–filled with everything from dry ingredients, to cookies, to frozen soups–that we dropped off at the doors of over 200 of our restaurant team members every month. Put together by the head office team, the boxes included easy and inexpensive recipes on how to use the ingredients, in hopes that we could provide support in this small way.
The success of these ingredient boxes ended up inspiring Impact to launch a similar concept for the community. With a lot of determination, Impact launched its first ever grocery program, and spent hours behind the scenes planning out the menu items, the packaging, the delivery logistics, the insert cards, the website and photography. All of this, with no idea on how it would actually be received by customers.
It was all worth it: the support from our community was amazing. We loved that people were so eager to order their grocery boxes so they could continue to eat their favourite Impact items at home. (Not surprisingly, the chocolate sea salt cookies were everyone’s favourites–although our broths, soups and stews were definitely up there.) Because of the enthusiastic support, Impact Kitchen was able to commit over $100,000 towards rehire bonuses to financially support our staff once the doors reopened.
2020 was the year that nobody saw coming: the pandemic hit, and for a moment it felt like the world had stopped. Like other restaurants, we were forced to make the difficult decision to close our doors in order to keep our staff and community safe.
In an effort to keep up morale, and support our team throughout this crisis, we decided to launch monthly food boxes–filled with everything from dry ingredients, to cookies, to frozen soups–that we dropped off at the doors of over 200 of our restaurant team members every month. Put together by the head office team, the boxes included easy and inexpensive recipes on how to use the ingredients, in hopes that we could provide support in this small way.
The success of these ingredient boxes ended up inspiring Impact to launch a similar concept for the community. With a lot of determination, Impact launched its first ever grocery program, and spent hours behind the scenes planning out the menu items, the packaging, the delivery logistics, the insert cards, the website and photography. All of this, with no idea on how it would actually be received by customers.
It was all worth it: the support from our community was amazing. We loved that people were so eager to order their grocery boxes so they could continue to eat their favourite Impact items at home. (Not surprisingly, the chocolate sea salt cookies were everyone’s favourites–although our broths, soups and stews were definitely up there.) Because of the enthusiastic support, Impact Kitchen was able to commit over $100,000 towards rehire bonuses to financially support our staff once the doors reopened.
Over the last year we expanded our grocery program to include themed boxes (like the Paleo box, Immunity box and Protein box), prepared meals (including the Paleo Shepherd’s Pie and Grain-Free Quiche), all of our baked goods, house-made dressings and soups and stews. It has been such a creatively challenging and rewarding experience, and we’re grateful to the community we’ve built over the years.
Finally, it feels as though we have some sense of normalcy: we’ve reopened all of our locations and we’re so excited to welcome everyone back and be a part of your daily routine again. Whether it’s getting a bowl to go to the office, loading up on retail items to pack for school lunches or getting work done at one of our locations while sipping on a coffee–courtesy of the monthly coffee subscription, of course–we want to set you up for success so you can continue to make an impact everyday.
As we turn our focus to bringing customers back into the restaurants, we know it’s time for the grocery program to change and evolve. With its end comes the exciting opportunity to create a new program, and for that, we’d love your input. By filling out this quick survey, let us know what you want to see in the grocery program. It’s your feedback that has helped guide Impact every step of the way, so tell us what you’d like to see happen next at Impact Kitchen!
