The Multicultural Foodservice & Hospitality Alliance announced Tuesday that #FairKitchens, a campaign created by Unilever Food Solutions, has contributed $50,000 to support the Alliance’s new diversity, equity, and inclusion Initiative. The program, called Elevate, provides restaurant, foodservice, and hospitality operators with guidance on how to develop a positive DEI culture.
Elevate was launched this summer using data from a DEI survey conducted by the Alliance, the National Restaurant Association, the National Restaurant Association Educational Foundation, and Cornell University Nolan School of Hotel Administration. The data indicated that strong DEI initiatives positively impact job satisfaction, engagement, and retention.
Similarly, Unilever Food Solutions' 2017 research found that a third of chefs feel under-appreciated daily, and over 60 percent believe their mental health is negatively impacted by their work. In response, the company founded #FairKitchens in 2018 to emphasize the importance of creating a healthy kitchen culture, offering tools that address underlying issues contributing to unhealthy behaviors or characteristics.
"Both MFHA and #FairKitchens are providing solutions to improve employee engagement by fostering healthy, inclusive workplaces," said Gerry A. Fernandez, president of The Multicultural Foodservice & Hospitality Alliance, in a statement. "Unilever's contribution helps us demonstrate the power of diversity in the restaurant and hospitality industry."
#FairKitchen's support helps the organizations working on Elevate to distribute the DEI Report to the industry for free. It will also make Elevate available to 100 of its restaurant partners.
"Over the last few years, #FairKitchens has come a long way in addressing, without fear and complacency, a lot of underlying issues in our kitchens, including diversity, equity, and inclusion," said Christos Dinopoulos, VP of Unilever Food Solutions North America, in a statement. "#FairKitchens has been well accepted and embraced by chefs around the world by offering tools to find step-by-step ways out of unhealthy kitchen habits and cultures, allowing them to do what they love."
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