Today we’d like to introduce you to Rashe Malcolm.
The mission of Rashe’s Cuisine is to source and serve food to nourish the body and soul. This means improving long-term health outcomes and reducing the risk of diet-related chronic illnesses in low-income communities through health-related advocacy. Rashe has created partnerships with the Athens Housing Authority, the East Athens Development Authority, Envision Athens, Vegan Outreach, the Athens Downtown Development Authority, WellCare Georgia, and many others to prepare and distribute fresh fruits and vegetables and healthy meals to limited-income adults, families, and seniors living in Athens-Clarke County communities. Rashe is a member of the Northeast Georgia Businesses Alliance and the Clarke County Industrial Authority. As her own business grew, Rashe wanted to encourage and assist the growth of other small businesses in the Athens creative culinary community. She formed a non-profit, The Culinary Kitchen of Athens (CKA), to support culinary entrepreneurs.
The CKA is in the third year of its Winter Market, where small business owners have an opportunity to sell products and produce to the public. Rashe’s goal is to establish affordable kitchen incubator space for emerging culinary businesses and other creatives (primarily minority, low income, female) who are required to utilize a USDA-certified commercial kitchen to produce their goods for retail sale. In addition to creating income for entrepreneurs and their families, the commercial kitchen can provide a location to process locally grown food. In 2019, Rashe formed a second non-profit, Farm to Neighborhood, which seeks to create a community in which all have access to delicious, nutritious and affordable food choices. Its mission is to provide fresh fruits and vegetables, as well as prepackaged healthy and affordable meals, for limited income adults, families, and seniors living in Athens-Clarke County communities. During this past year, Rashe was able to connect with local farmers to fill “Bags of Delish” with fresh fruits and vegetables to distribute to low-income families each week.
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey have been a fairly smooth road?
Rashe’s Cuisine began as a brick-and-mortar business on Tallassee Road. In 2017, a fire destroyed the location. Long before “pivot” was a trendy term, Rashe recovered from the devastating fire by pivoting her efforts to grow the catering segment of the business. Never one to let grass grow under her feet, once Rashe’s Cuisine catering was in high demand, Rashe began looking for new ways to grow the business and to help other entrepreneurs. Then 2020 happened. This past year has been especially difficult for the hospitality industry, with most businesses happy to maintain anything close to a status quo.
When the COVID-19 pandemic basically shut down catering in early 2020, Rashe had purchased a food truck and was preparing to open a new brick-and-mortar location. Rather than putting those plans on hold, she doubled down. Despite the obstacles that 2020 brought, Rashe overcame every hurdle that she encountered and opened Rashe’s Cuisine at Triangle Plaza in East Athens. She partnered with local nonprofit organizations that received CARES Act funding and served many thousands of meals to children, families, and seniors who were hardest hit by the economic fallout. The third Winter Market opened in January at The Bottleworks, and Rashe is looking to establish a physical location for the CKA shared commercial kitchen incubator space within the next year.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
Rashe Malcolm is a serial entrepreneur, founding three businesses. She is constantly on the go and looking for new ways to better serve community. She is the founder of Rashe’s Cuisine, a Jamaican- cuisine restaurant that allows her to share her Jamaican roots. Rashe Malcolm began developing her signature style of Caribbean Southern fusion as a child by helping her great-grandparents cook. Her mom’s career in the Air Force took the family around the world, from Connecticut, where Rashe was born, to North Carolina, Oklahoma, Spain, Germany, and Jamaica. At each stop, Rashe learned about the region’s culinary culture and incorporated the flavors and techniques into her own cuisine. Today, Rashe incorporates all of these influences and life lessons into a cuisine that fuses flavors, warmth, and love for family and community. In 2018, she felt a calling to support the local food industry thus founding the Culinary Kitchen of Athens, a non-profit organization whose mission is to support the local food industry, made up of farmers, vendors, and entrepreneurs.
In 2019, she founded her second non-profit organization called Farm to Neighborhood which aims to supply low-income residents with fresh and local produce at an affordable cost. Above all else, Rashe is a food activist. She has remained determined to serve a healthier (and delicious) version of foods based on her Jamaican heritage – low salt, low sugar, no animal fat. She continues to mentor countless food entrepreneurs, especially from the minority community, both in Athens and throughout the state. Rashe serves on the board of the Food Truck Association of Georgia and worked to allow reciprocity between counties for food truck licensure. She has developed key partnerships with the higher education community in Athens, hosting multiple interns through the Federal Work-Study program and UGA’s School of Social Work. Her collaboration with SNAP-Ed (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Education) has led to outreach efforts that promote nutrition in low-income communities.
Can you share something surprising about yourself?
Rashe’s passions include family, entrepreneurship, economic improvement, social injustice, and her community as a whole. Her motto is “If we support each other, then we’ve already made it.
Contact Info:
- Website: rashecuisine.com, culinarykitchenathens.com, and www.farmtoneighborhood.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rashecuisine/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RasheCuisine/
