A stirring success
Enterprise creates great soup and meaningful employment for people on disability support
KITCHENER — Giant pots of soup burble on the stovetop while the team diligently chops carrots, onions and other veggies to toss into the fragrant brew.
While the air was crisp outdoors, the church kitchen was cosy as the Raw Carrot Soup Enterprise team prepared handcrafted gourmet soups.
“It’s all hand done. It’s a good skill to learn and it just fosters a real sense of community working like this,” said manager Jenn Klassen.
The social enterprise is about so much more than soup. It creates meaningful work for people on the Ontario Disability Support Program who struggle to find traditional employment.
“We all want to feel needed,” Klassen said.
The program is run by the Mennonite Central Committee in partnership with Stirling Avenue Mennonite Church (which is lending its commercial kitchen), and the Raw Carrot Soup Enterprise. The Kitchener site, which started in the spring, is the third location in Ontario, joining Paris and Mount Forest.
Currently it employs four people locally and is supported by a dozen volunteers.
Cooking is gearing back up after a summer break when the kitchen was too hot for soup making, not to mention the lower demand for a hearty, hot meal.
All the soup varieties start with chopping to fill each jumbo pot, which holds up to 90 cups of soup.
“That’s a lot,” Klassen said. “For one pot we need 36 cups of carrots, so that’s a lot of chopping.”
The soup is sold frozen in three sizes: a small tub, threecup and six-cup bag. Five flavours are on the menu: Signature Carrot, Veggie Mania, Chicken Noodle, Sausage and Cabbage, and Mulligatawny. They’re hoping to add Potato Bacon and Lentil Barley.
Everyone working in the kitchen on Tuesday had a favourite. For Klassen, it’s the carrot with fresh ginger, curry and coconut milk.
“It’s just cosy,” Klassen said. Carrot is also a favourite for Suzi Gursoy, while Nick Lang likes the new mulligatawny.
“It’s healthy soup and it’s really tasty,” Lang said.
Both are on disability support and happy to have a job with Raw Carrot after years out of the workforce.
“I was eager. I wanted to work,” Gursoy said. “It’s an awesome opportunity.”
Lang began volunteering with the Working Centre after hospitalizations for mental health issues. Previously he had a fulltime job in retail, but quit because the pressure was too much.
They both feel at home in the Raw Carrot kitchen.
“The people are very accepting and welcoming,” Lang said.
“It’s a very comfortable atmosphere,” Gursoy agreed.
Soup is sold at the Mennonite Central Committee’s building at 50 Kent Ave. in Kitchener every Wednesday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. in the atrium. Full Circle Natural Foods at 3 Charles St. W. and Farm Boy at 385 Fairway Rd. S. in Kitchener also stock the soup.
Anyone interested in organizing soup sales can contact Klassen at jennklassen@mcco.ca.
Find out more about the initiative at therawcarrot.com.