Nourishing Community,
Building Equity

Propel Kitchens is a nonprofit training, education and social enterprise developer focused on creating health and wealth with food. We’re a community kitchen and collaborative platform for Black and Brown food producers and entrepreneurs.

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Our mission

Propel Kitchens’ mission is to utilize nutrition, food industry training and education initiatives as tools to equip and enable St. Louis residents and communities to combat persistent economic and health inequities.

Our focus is multi-dimensional. We work to create health and wealth through food with our programs.

a young black woman smiles as she shows off a large bowl of chicken that she's grilling in an industrial kitchen setting.

Helping Food Entrepreneuers

We support the growth and sustainability of Black and Brown food entrepreneurs, producers and growers with technical assistance, access to contracts and financing, as well as retail exposure.

various foods are displayed on a metal industrial kitchen countertop. three bunches of herbs are labeled rosemary, oregano and thyme.

Culinary Education

We train and equip Black and Brown people with not only the culinary skills needed by restaurants and caterers, but also the culinary and business skills necessary to succeed in careers in the broader foodservice industry and institutional foodservice companies.

two black women serve themselves food from a table of catered platters of food. a sign in the background indicates that this is a STEM teacher appreciation event.

Feeding the Community

We attack food access and chronic disease disparities by producing and distributing high-quality, healthy food to individuals, communities and institutions—especially the Black and Brown families and individuals who live in food deserts and disproportionately suffer from chronic disease for which healthy food is medicine.

Poised for growth

We have already created a new social enterprise cooperative of Black and Brown food entrepreneurs and nonprofits to broaden exposure and opportunities for growth and sustainability.

Propel Kitchens is also piloting expansion programs to our current offerings. Our hope is to increase the number of schools participating in Feeding the Community and expand to more after school programs. We also plan to expand our pre-packaged fresh and frozen food offerings to seniors. 

Annual fish fry

Every Friday during Lent, Propel Kitchens hosts our annual fish fry fundraiser featuring a special menu prepared by a celebrity chef. This fun and delicious event is always a crowd favorite. Stay tuned for when we announce our 2025 dates!

Propel Kitchens Featured on St. Louis on the Air

Latest news

Cooking Up

Cooking Up

Propel Kitchens is building health and wealth within the historically under-resourced community of the St. Louis Promise Zone by providing its members with hands-on training in food preparation and service and then setting them up with careers in the industry. As the...

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Support our mission

Your support makes it possible for us to create health and wealth with food. Our community kitchen runs on volunteers and donations to provide a platform for Black and Brown food producers and entrepreneurs.