Thank you for inviting me to participate in your study.
First, I would like to give you a brief overview of the work carried out at La Tablée des Chefs. La Tablée des Chefs' mission focuses on two components, which are feeding and educating.
Under the “feed” component, we have a program to recover surplus food from the hospitality, restaurant, event and institutional sectors, meaning food services across Canada. We currently distribute over 3.3 million servings across the country, in addition to what frontline organizations receive from food banks or other sources. Over 450 of our facilities participate in the program, including sports arenas and major event venues.
I would also like to tell you that La Tablée des Chefs has launched a program under its “feed” component that ties in with the national school food program. Our organization also provides soup. The solidarity soups program began two years ago in five elementary schools in the Montérégie region. It provides special food options and is now available in over 92 elementary schools. It also includes pilot projects in Winnipeg and Niagara Falls.
We operate in 375 public high schools, including 300 in Quebec and over 75 in eight other Canadian provinces. We work in both official languages, in English and French. We provide the kitchen brigades program in all these locations.
We also operate in over 80 locations under the youth protection branch throughout Quebec. We distribute over 6,000 starter kits to introduce young people to cooking. These young people are in transition. They will gradually shift towards independent living. These young people, aged 15 to 25, come from youth protection systems across the province. Over 20% of them live in indigenous communities. They're embarking on this crucial transition to independent living.
We work in the culinary industry. During the pandemic, we mobilized over 60 kitchens across Canada—