We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Meet Nolan & Asia Cook a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Nolan and Asia, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Let’s kick things off with your mission – what is it and what’s the story behind why it’s your mission?
At Cooks Culinary, we believe that every child has been placed on this earth to be someone that makes a difference! So, we want to make sure that we are doing our due diligence and creating a more nutrition and high quality based menu. We understand how important it is to a students growth and development to eat a healthy balanced meal each day. Studies show that most students are able to focus better, and improve their ability to learn after eating a balanced breakfast.
Our food doesn’t just fuel our students, our mission is to provide food that can be enjoyed for any age! We would like the love that we place in our meals to transfer into whoever enjoys it. To us, food is not just food. It is the gateway to greatness!
We have made a commitment to provide food services for more than just profit, our desire is to fuel a generation of children that will be on fire for life! We want our students to recognize that there are no limits to what they can achieve. That is why with the help of teaching professionals we have also created a curriculum that will allow hungry minds to see what the day to day entrepreneur lifestyle consists of. Through our company, we want to provide a learning experience in the management and food industry. As our company and vision grows, we see ourselves expanding our curriculum and becoming a university for all things entrepreneurship!
We are a people who dream too, and if we can provide the fuel for mind and body to feel invisible out in this world, than that is what we will do! Trusting our company means that you are in alignment with our mission, and we are happy to be on this mission with you!
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
In 2016, Nolan and Asia Cook had the vision to produce a multifaceted catering business that would provide high-quality food and an even higher quality of service to those they are called to serve. That vision became a reality when Cooks Catering emerged into the food industry as a consistent and reputable Food Service Management Company servicing the Pittsburgh area. Over the years, the company’s tenacity grew as they developed partnerships with local corporations and schools, making them one of the leading catering companies in the Pittsburgh Region. Nolan and Asia began mentoring aspiring entrepreneurs at a prominent Charter School in the Pittsburgh region, when they were introduced to the lack of nutritional meals being offered during school hours. Due to them also having daycare and school-age children of their own, they recognized the value of nutritious hardy meals and the impact that it has on the development of healthy habits, and the ability to focus and retain information while learning.
Cooks Culinary Management was put in motion, obtaining all the necessary education and certifications to begin vending meals for daycare, k-12, and private learning facilities in the Pittsburgh Region. Within the first year, the company acquired 7 contracts, quickly becoming a desired vendor of choice. The organization grew as they hired seasoned passion-filled cooks who use high-quality food to produce a homestyle menu that makes you think you are eating at your dinner table. Also having meals that are made from scratch has helped to become a fan favorite amongst the many daycare centers that they serve. In addition, the company has hired a specialized expertise that has extensive experience in CACFP, record keeping, meal service, and administration to ensure the company remains well rounded and informed. Years later, their goal remains the same, to provide the highest quality of food and an even higher quality of service to its customers, the only difference is the audience being children who will shape our future only further activated their passion to make an impact in this industry.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
During Covid we had to stop working due to the emergency shut down. But after a week or two, we found out that our business can still function on the basis of doing bagged lunches for schools. That was a moment for us to realize that our business can function at the worst time in this world. An we knew we had something very special on our hands.
Can you talk to us about how your side-hustle turned into something more.
One thing we realize that we can cook. So we store is selling plates out of our home for a few weeks and that turned into us starting our catering company after a few months and may be a year or two after that arcade company took off to Heights we could not imagine, we started doing corporate contracts you know weddings, birthdays, you name it we were doing it all after a few years. We had opportunity to get inside the school lunch program and that’s when culinary management was born during our first year. We secure seven school contracts. Feeding almost 500 kids a day. And one thing how we scaled up to Will, we are today is that we are very persistent on going to different schools going to different daycare’s going to different corporate offices you know, passing out our brochures giving out free samples of food to places.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.cooksculinary.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cookscateringllc?igsh=MXFvdzd0eTlqdnR2cA==
Image Credits
Nolan Cook
Asia Cook