Moving back from Toronto in late 2009 with my husband and two elementary school children, I found myself very frustrated with the lack of nutritious hot lunches available to schools in the Windsor area. I grew up in Tecumseh and decided this area needed a change…my favorite quote “be the change you wish to see in the world.
HARVEST FRESH CATERING started out as a small catering company creating nutritious and delicious food for elementary schools. The official launch was in September 2010. After calling numerous schools and hearing “NO, not interested”, I finally found a Vice Principal, LeeAnn Poisson that believed in the concept and allowed Harvest Fresh a chance at being their caterer. It initially started out as a part time commercial kitchen rental from a friend with three staff in Windsor to a full time catering establishment. Within months of our launch Principals and Parent Councils were calling to invite US into their school!
Harvest Fresh has meals that are delicious and nutritious with lower amounts of fat, sugar and sodium. The menu is centered on child favorites – a lot of items you see at Harvest Fresh you will see in local and multi-national restaurants around the world. As the demand increased for our service we expanded and bought our own commercial kitchen to service the area much more effectively and efficiently.
I would like to say advertising, but really it has been through word of mouth. I have been lucky to offer such great tasting nutritious food, that children and parents rave about us! Our customer service is top notch and we believe that not only we are a supplier of food, but we also have a responsibility to make children and parents feel safe about knowing they can count on us to deliver their child a lunch.
I was able to draw on over 10 years of senior management food experience from Toronto and work with top nutritionists from multi-national companies to create a child-friendly menu. This menu would comply with the strict school board health code and fill little tummies around the County of Essex. My late husband pushed me to continue to make cold calls until I found at least one school! I still remember him constantly saying, “Tammy, just get one school….all you need is one school to start….”
The biggest challenge was going back to work after losing my husband/business partner after his unsuccessful short and unexpected battle with Cancer in June of 2014. Learning how to count on my amazing staff and trust in them as they managed Harvest Fresh, learning to take time to mourn and finally learning how to be a single parent to my two amazing children.
