DC Central Kitchen

For small food businesses – like Cowbell Kitchen – selling at farmers markets offers opportunities to expand menu offerings and grow their customer base. Cowbell Kitchen founder Cheryl Strasser started in 2012 as a two-person team selling biscuit sandwiches out of a 5x8-food trailer. After selling...

At first blush, a five-star hotel and a local community food kitchen would seem to have little in common. An innovative program funded by USDA’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), the Ritz-Carlton in Pentagon City, Va., and the DC Central Kitchen (DCCK) in Washington, D.C., have...

We celebrated a few “firsts” today when Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack opened the 21 st season of the USDA Farmers Market located outside USDA Headquarters in Washington, D.C. The Secretary announced the first-ever partnership between USDA, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and the General...

At USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS), our 4,000 employees work hard every day to support the country’s diverse agricultural operations. Whether it’s individual farmers or international businesses, we have a long tradition of collaborating, innovating, and evolving to keep American...

This spring, kids from across the country honed their culinary and nutrition skills to participate in the Healthy Lunchtime Challenge, and the wait is over to find out who received the top spot from each of the 50 states, four U.S. territories, and the District of Columbia. The winners of the 2015...

All summer, visitors to the National Capitol Region have been seeing monuments, public buildings, works of art and experiencing music and theater; however, many were unexpectedly surprised by the brilliant hues of purple, red and green emanating from USDA’s People’s Garden. But those colors didn’t...

Every week USDA employee volunteers pick ripe herbs and vegetables from the Headquarters People’s Garden and deliver it to DC Central Kitchen, a local community kitchen. So far this growing season more than 1,000 pounds of fresh food has been donated from the garden. This week’s harvest weighed in...

As the USDA Farmers Market prepares to begin a new season, we invite everyone to come celebrate the richness and diversity of the market and the DC community that brings us all together. Whether you're a federal employee, a sight-seeing tourist, or a long-time resident, we are all a part of what...

DC Truck Farm is a collaborative effort between D.C. Central Kitchen (DCCK) and USDA’s People’s Garden Initiative. Now in its second year, this garden on wheels travels around the Nation’s Capital teaching urban youth about agriculture, soil science and nutrition education. It got moving thanks to...

A budding new crop of People’s Garden volunteers recently blossomed. Nearly 60 USDA employees received certificates at a ceremony, marking their completion of the department’s 2011 Executive Master Gardener (EMG) training program. Class of 2011 graduates were welcomed as “new-bees” during a sweet...