Rooted In Celebrates Grand Opening of New Culinary Center

Rooted In celebrated the grand opening and ribbon cutting of the Rooted In Culinary Center of Excellence at Curative Connections East on Thursday, July 16, marking a major step forward in strengthening Greater Green Bay’s food access system.

Hosted in partnership with the Greater Green Bay Chamber, the event celebrates the opening of a first-of-its-kind community resource that brings together food recovery, scratch meal production, culinary education, volunteer engagement and Food Is Medicine programming to improve health while reducing food waste.

Unlike a traditional food pantry or meal program, Rooted In addresses a critical gap in the local food system. The organization recovers high-quality surplus food from farms, food manufacturers, distributors, retailers, restaurants, and community partners, then redistributes it or transforms it into nutritious meals that are shared through a network of trusted community food access partners serving individuals and families experiencing food insecurity.

The new Culinary Center of Excellence significantly expands Rooted In’s capacity to recover more food, prepare more meals, train volunteers, deliver culinary and nutrition education, and collaborate with community partners to improve long-term health outcomes.

“This center represents far more than a kitchen,” said Selena Darrow, Founder and CEO of Rooted In. “It is where food that might otherwise be wasted becomes nourishment, where people gain the confidence to cook and eat well, and where community partnerships come together to improve and strengthen our local food system. This is what it looks like when we invest in prevention, sustainability, and community.”

Since launching in 2023, Rooted In has become Brown County’s only nonprofit integrating food recovery, meal production, Food Is Medicine education, and collaborative food distribution into one community-based model. Since launching meal production in 2024, the organization has recovered more than 55,000 pounds of surplus food, prepared more than 11,000 nutritious meals, and engaged over 300 hundred volunteers in reducing food waste while expanding access to nutritious food.