This story was originally published by Reasons to be Cheerful
At 7 a.m., Nairobi’s Giga Kitchen almost resembles an 18th-century factory in the midst of the Industrial Revolution. Giant steam-powered cookers churn out great clouds of mist as troops of workers in dark overalls scurry around with shovels in hand.
But there are remarkably modern aspects to the 32,000-square-foot warehouse on the outskirts of Kenya’s capital city. The steam — produced by a pair of two-ton machines powered by “eco briquettes” of compressed sawdust — is channeled via a network of tubes linked to cookers filled with green lentils, mung beans, black-eyed peas, onions and more. Electric vehicles zip by with containers of the food, which are weighed and have their temperature recorded before being loaded onto trucks.
“We even sterilize the [used] cooking containers with steam,” says Carol Kinuthia, the 24-year-old manager of the Giga Kitchen, as a huge column of warm air wafts out from a rumbling cooker beside her. “Nothing goes to waste here.”
This gargantuan food hub, which launched in August 2023, produces 60,000 meals a day for school kids across Nairobi. Up to 900 containers of locally sourced, healthy meals, each weighing about 45 kilograms, are dispatched to the city’s schools every morning.
The Giga Kitchen is the jewel in the crown of Food4Education, a Kenyan nonprofit using high-tech, low-carbon and centralized kitchens to feed students en masse in what is Africa’s largest locally led and independently run school feeding program.
All scrolling images are by Peter Yeung.
The post The Huge, High-Tech, Low-Carbon Kitchens Feeding Young Kenyans appeared first on Reasons to be Cheerful.
