>> ... Next Generation ... Food Academy To market with Noam Kimelman. VIVIAN HENOCH I SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS MN► Noam Kimelman funny thing happened to Noam Kimelman on his way to medical school. He started eating healthy. As a result, he lost weight and gained perspective on the way wholesome food can improve lives. Energized in a new direction, he pursued a master's degree in health management and policy at the University of Michigan, then, while still in grad school, co-founded a mission- driven business to bring fresh, ready-to-go salads and sandwiches to corner stores in Detroit. This was the start of Fresh Corner Cafe. From there, Kimelman launched his second Detroit- based enterprise — the Detroit Food Academy (DFA), an after-school leadership development program for young Detroiters. DFA now holds workshops up to twice a week in 10 high schools, teaching more than 200 students the basics of cooking, nutrition, business and new product development. Additionally, during the summer, 30 of the top students receive a $1,000 stipend either to deepen their cooking skills or to grow their ideas from small batches into businesses of their own. A Mangoes On A Stick - - - The concept for the academy was first inspired by the students at Cesar Chavez Academy High School in Detroit. "I was volunteering in an after-school program — still in school myself, when the students decided they wanted to develop a spicy mango-on-a-stick to sell at lunchtime," Kimelman says. "It was an ingenious product. They came in one day with 200 mangoes to sell to their peers for $1.50 a pop and made $300 in a couple of hours in their high school cafeteria. "We think kids only want Cheetos, and there they were, getting in line for a healthy alternative. And there I was — a college grad with a startup company — banging my head trying to figure how to give people access to healthier food. And here were these kids, totally out- maneuvering me in every way! It goes to show the power of peer-to-peer marketing." Taking his cues from the students, Kimelman took a marketing class, then an accounting course and started building a more robust business model for Fresh Corner. 52 August 27 • 2015 DeShawn Lindsey As a result, Fresh Corner Cafe now has a growing brand with revenues of more than $250,000 a year. In 2014, Kimelman won the Young Entrepreneur Award from SCORE, a national organization that aids small businesses. More recently, he was listed among Crain's Detroit Business'2015 "20 in their 20s," an elite class of local up-and-coming business people to watch. Kimelman also serves on Detroit Wayne County Health Authority's Population Health Council and Foodlab's Steering Committee. Have You Had A Mitten Bite? Pursuing both his business and nonprofit enterprise with equal zeal, these days Kimelman can be found with regularity shopping the city's farmers' markets — particularly where the students of the Detroit Food Academy have set up shop at the Eastern Market, the Northwest Market on Scarsdale Street, Wayne State Market on Cass Avenue and the new Corktown Market on the grounds of the Detroit Institute of Bagels. In a prominent position at the Corktown Market on a recent Thursday evening, we meet DeShawn Lindsey, a senior at Central Collegiate High School and a chef-in- the-making at the DFA. Lindsey is personable and poised — the perfect spokesman for the DFA and its first ready- to-market product — Mitten Bites — a little scoop of natural goodness in a soft, no-bake cookie. "We're just starting to see our marketing materialize for what we call our Small Batch Detroit product line," Kimelman says. "Over the past six months, we've been in pilot mode with Mitten Bites, generating about $7,000 in revenue. Watching our numbers carefully, we can say that 25 cents of every dollar in sales goes to support student wages. Mitten Bites is on Whole Foods' shelves. We are going with Door-to-Door Organics — home delivery in five states — and hoping to get Mitten Bites into grocery stores throughout the region. Proof positive that the program has the potential to sustain jobs and transform lives, Lindsey describes the benefits in a nutshell, "It gets me really thinking about the foods we eat. Normally, you make what you know or eat whatever you're used to. The Detroit Food Academy forces you to try new things — like next Tuesday we're going to make pulled-chicken (a variation on the usual pork) with portabella mushrooms sliders, roasted potatoes with vegetables. And that's just a small taste of things we're doing at the Detroit Food Academy, making things like a beet soup, curry, potato latkes (my favorite). We're also learning to build our own businesses, how to stretch the value of a dollar, feeding as many people as possible off of each little dish." Next Steps? "Our kids have been amazing," Kimelman says. "Like our rock star DeShawn, they are taking ownership of their work and they love what they are doing. We hoped this might happen when we started DFA, but things are actually turning out the way we dreamed it up, which is really exciting." What's next for DFA is a fellowship program, something Kimelman describes as "AmeriCorps meets small-scale food business, a really cool way to spend a gap year." He envisions a 10-month fellowship, placing DFA graduates with local food businesses that could use their talents and support. "Students would get an amazing experience, while staying local — a key factor in building DFA into a model institution in Detroit." In Detroit, Kimelman sees plenty of room to grow, leveraging the city's considerable resources. "Rather than building from scratch and parachuting in with our own educators, we work with teachers who know the infrastructure of the schools and know their students. In 10 years' time, our hope is that DFA will be an all-student run organization, student-led with DFA grads employed full-time running the show." ❑ Vivian Henoch is a writer for myjewishdetroit.org, where this story first appeared.