Conestoga College culinary and baking students at the Waterloo campus prepared 2,000 portions of vegetarian chili in March 2026 as part of the La Tablée des Chefs initiative, doubling the 1,000 meals made the previous year. Around 20 students worked in the college kitchen to produce the meals, which aimed to help local food programs and give students hands-on experience with community service.
Of the 2,000 portions, 1,600 were donated to the Cambridge Food Bank, with the remainder distributed to students at the college’s Kitchener-Doon and Waterloo campuses through the Conestoga College Bloom restaurant and Conestoga Students Inc. (CSI). Bloom serves as the student-run teaching restaurant at the Waterloo campus and was the preparation site for the project.
Dan McCowan, executive chef at Bloom, led the effort and said the biggest challenge was storing and processing the volume of ingredients supplied by La Tablée des Chefs and its sponsors. “There are dozens of cases of tomatoes and beans. The tofu came in 250-gram packs. There were around 200 packs that needed to be opened, drained and pressed,” he said. “One of our kettles was full for three days straight.”
The Conestoga effort was part of a nationwide program by La Tablée des Chefs that has delivered more than 26.4 million cooked portions to community organizations since 2002. The organization also won a F1 Allwyn Global Community Award in May 2026, receiving a €100,000 prize to support its work, and has been expanding programs that teach food skills and support food recovery.
The donation arrives as the Cambridge Food Bank continues to meet high local need, distributing about 2,000 emergency food hampers each month and serving more than 18,000 people a year through its Mobile Food Market. Conestoga’s second year participating in La Tablée des Chefs gives students practical training in large-scale food preparation while sending a substantial batch of ready-to-eat meals into the local food system.
