HOUSTON … More children living with uncertainty about whether they’ll have enough nutritious food to eat will be fed thanks to the Houston Food Bank and its new, state-of-the-art production kitchen. Construction is complete on the new 10,000 square-foot Keegan Kitchen, housed within the Food Bank’s headquarters/warehouse east of downtown. Production of nutritious hot meals for delivery to school-aged children at after-school and summer program sites is underway.

As America’s largest food bank in distribution, the Houston Food Bank provides 79 million nutritious meals to its network of 600 hunger relief agencies in 18 southeast Texas counties. In addition to distributing fresh produce, meat and dairy products along with nonperishable items from its warehouse at 535 Portwall, the Food Bank also distributes hot meals for kids prepared at its Keegan Kitchen, which was previously located in an off-site facility. The size of the previous kitchen (3,000 square-feet) hampered needed increased production. Until now.

On average, the previous Keegan Kitchen produced 4,000 hot meals daily. The new kitchen is built to increase that capacity in the future to five times that amount, or 20,000 hot meals daily.

Keegan Kitchen meals are served through the Food Bank’s Kids Cafe program, one of the nation’s largest for production of hot meals. Last year, Kids Cafe prepared 720,766 nutritious meals for children. A small fleet of trucks delivers the food in insulated containers that hold safe temperatures until meals are served at 75 different sites.

The thoughtful layout and state-of-the-art equipment make production much more efficient and volunteer-friendly. The kitchen is visible from the reception area and Houston Texans Cafe on the first floor, and from the second floor Conference Center.

Some of the key aspects of the new kitchen are:

· Enhanced equipment for handling fresh produce. Houston Food Bank is a leader in the distribution of fresh fruits and vegetables (40% of its distribution), and new equipment for handling produce is especially useful. Before, kitchen staff had to handle pieces of produce one-at-a-time. Now, the kitchen’s Cold Prep Room features a produce wedger that can slice 90 apples in a minute, and a “produce Jacuzzi” sink that quickly washes large batches of fresh fruits and vegetables. There is also a high-capacity peeler that can peel 30 pounds of potatoes in one-to-three minutes.

· Bigger ovens. The new kitchen has a large rack oven that can cook up to 60 sheet pans at a time.

· An efficient “assembly line” for meal trays. Meal trays travel down a steam table on a conveyor belt as volunteers scoop freshly prepared food into tray compartments, then the trays move through a sealing machine that can handle up to 12 meals a minute.

· One-of-a-kind cart wash. One won’t find this at any other food bank: a room where insulated containers are power-washed and dried each day to clean them before safely transporting meals to kids the next morning. We like to call it a cart wash.

“This new equipment along with new processes will transform our productivity, all designed to help us expand the number of meals we produce for children,” says Brian Greene, president/CEO of Houston Food Bank. “Sadly, one in four kids in southeast Texas is at risk for hunger. We’re grateful to the community for donating the funds needed to build this bigger, better kitchen so we can feed even more children through our Kids Cafe program.”

Kids Cafe meals are designed per Texas Department of Agriculture standards and overseen by Houston Food Bank’s on-staff registered dieticians to ensure they are nutritious as well as delicious.

As before, kitchen volunteers provide essential help in the kitchen, and the new facility will allow for more helping hands working at a time – 40 volunteers on the morning shift, and 25 volunteers in the afternoon.

Keegan Kitchen is named after Mary Barden Keegan, a community volunteer and activist who founded the End Hunger Network in 1985. Her determination to help Houston’s hungry was sparked by a televised report about poverty and hunger within the Houston area. She established End Hunger Network to make it easier for the community to funnel existing resources to emergency food providers. End Hunger Network and Houston Food Bank merged in 2008.

“We will continue the amazing legacy started by Mary Barden Keegan,” says Nicole Lander, director of outreach services for the food bank, who oversees the kitchen and its production. “We are grateful for the years we cooked in her namesake building, and we continue to honor her memory by retaining her name for the new facility. We know that Mrs. Keegan would be happy that we can serve even more children who struggle with hunger.”

When not producing Kids Cafe meals, Keegan Kitchen will also be utilized by 535 Catering, the Houston Food Bank’s new catering department that is available to provide food and service for events being held at the on-site conference center.

For more information on Houston Food Bank and its programs, visit HoustonFoodBank.org.