S2: Noam Kimelman of Fresh Corner Cafe#57

Detroit-based founder, Noam Kimelman of  Fresh Corner Cafe Romy interviews Noam Kimelman on his venture Fresh Corner Cafe in Detroit.  They also discuss his non-profit partner, Detroit Food Academy, and the motivation of the youth in the city of Detroit!  Noam is  a very intelligent and engaging guest. Great Detroit artist at the end of the episode to round out another great show!                                                           Full Transcript: Romy: Welcome to the Bonfires of Social Enterprise show! This is Romy, and I hope this interview inspires you. I interviewed Noam Kimelman from Fresh Corner Cafe and Detroit Food Academy. Noam shares about the genesis of Fresh Corner Cafe and what is moving his heart these days. I want to get right to is because it is busting with wisdom. He has a soft-spoken nature and a big giant heart for the kids of Detroit. Be sure to stay tuned to end so you can enjoy another great song by Detroit artist, Griz. Okay, here is a portion of my interview with Noam Kimelman. Romy: Noam, let’s talk about Fresh Corner Café. Noam: Fresh Corner Café is a mission-driven food service provider working to increase access to healthy foods in Detroit. We started off by looking at the landscape and hearing a lot about what was once called the Urban Food Desert, now more often called the Urban Food Swamp because there is quite a number of food options, but a lot of really unhealthy food options. There was a lot of talk about a lack of access to grocery stores, and there was this report that came out that spoke about how the physical proximity to healthy food retail versus unhealthy food retail, and how that was one of the highest indicators of diet-related disease and obesity. Just the mere fact, controlling for education, income level, race, and all the other possible confounding factors, just the mere proximity from one person to a fresh grocery store, versus a fast food restaurant or a corner store, had a big effect on their health. We looked at that, and we thought, “Why does it need to be that way?” I spent some time in Argentina when I was in college, and the corner stores were not the way we think of corner stores here. They were abounding with fresh produce; they were community centers; they were these really wholesome, healthy places to feed your family and to feed yourself. In Detroit, and I think in most of America, gas stations and corner stores are entirely the opposite. It’s ways to get a quick fix of sugar and processed junk to keep you feeling bad and unhealthy. We looked at the model, and we thought, “Why does a gas station and corner store have to be an unhealthy food retail location? Couldn’t it be a healthy food retail location?” If you could figure out a sustainable model to get healthy foods into corner stores and gas stations, now you have 1,000 new healthy food retailers that are literally on every single corner in