The Black Kitchen Initiative began in 2020, with the mission to celebrate and preserve the legacy of Black food. We seek to break down the barriers that keep Black voices and cooking out of the American culinary pantheon with programs that approach the issues of the industry from a variety of creative angles. Check out what we’ve been working on lately below!

The Heinz Black Kitchen Initiative is back for Year 4 of empowering, supporting and pouring into Black restaurants. Our program continues in partnership with The Lee Initiative(opens in a new window) and SRRJ Coalition to provide more than $1MM in grants and other business resources to Black food businesses in communities nationwide.

Season 2 of the Black Kitchen Series brings us all over the country as we attempt to find the chefs, growers, healers, activists, artists, writers, historians and other brilliant Black innovators changing the face of food as we understand it. Hosted by Jade Verette (@JadeofallJades), the Webby and James Beard Award-winning podcast was created by Heinz and Wieden+Kennedy, with production support by the Mayda Creative Co.

Open Kitchen is a special event series designed to give up-and-coming chefs an opportunity to take over the kitchen of a high-profile chef for an evening dinner service. Through the event, we seek to help these chefs grow their clientele and gain exposure in a new city to help their restaurants and culinary careers flourish.

Our first stop was in Harlem, with Black Kitchen Initiative grantees Joy Crump and Beth Black of Foode + Mercantile (Fredericksburg, VA) taking over Marcus Samuelsson’s beloved Red Rooster. Our second stop was in Atlanta, featuring Antwan and Lorraine Smalls of My Three Sons (Charleston, SC) for an evening in Marcus Bar & Grille.