All Eyes on Latoya
Latoya Meaders is headed to the moon. Or at least, when she pops up on my google meet, she’s perched inside a compact space capsule with her son, Fayla, sitting gingerly on her lap. “We’re in a spaceship. We’re going to outer space!” Fayla shoots me a wide grin, before hopping off Latoya and scurrying from screen.
While not literal, it’s not too far from the truth. Latoya Meaders is a force to be reckoned with, and her metaphorical spaceship is Collective Fare. Collective Fare & Food Works is an agri-food and hospitality services company, with a focus on local food systems, food access, community wellness, and sustainability. With a solutions based approach to dual problems of food insecurity and systemic disempowerment, Collective Fare & Food Works offers a breadth of services designed to tackle multiple weak links throughout the food system.
Latoya was born in the Bronx, but grew up between Staten Island, NY and Charleston, SC. “I have a bit of what you call a North-South lifestyle. I went to school in New York, but I spent the summers, harvest seasons and winters in Charleston.” Her connection to these places, though split, run deep. Latoya’s paternal family were legendary in the seafood business in New York “My father’s side were predominantly fishermen - any occupation that concerned with seafood harvesting, they were involved.”, while her maternal heritage consisted of “farmers, construction workers, and builders”. The common thread between these is an instinct to nurture, grow and create - which Latoya has carried on.
“In Charleston, My Grandfather - who I was very close to, ran a juke joint - a little backyard barbecue spot that everyone in the community was deeply loyal to. I mean, everybody in the community knew that spot, they knew Frank's place. I say this, just to reflect on how now that I'm hitting my older years. I'm realizing how much more I am like my family than I ever knew I could be.”
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Family is a deep track when it comes to inspiration for Latoya. “My mother is the cooker of the family. That's what my kid, my nieces and nephews call her. You're not a chef, you're the cooker.” Latoya says her natural predisposition toward resourcefulness in dealing with ingredients from her mother. She recounted stories of her mother making whole meals out of an empty pantry. And at impressive volumes, too. “She still to this day cooks for the church. Every Saturday - for like a hundred people. She's 70, and she’s still cooking. It’s just how she connects with people. through food.” Latoya says the practicality of her mom’s skills shaped her own multiplicities. “As the oldest child, I was leaned on a lot to learn and to pick up traditional cooking methods - which I have, and I've mastered them.” Cooking at such volume, and seasonally, also imbued an instinct for preservation. “It's funny because we talked about food waste now, right? And I realized, as I'm going through this journey, I'm replaying my own memories. Like, we've always done this.”
Latoya began her culinary journey swiftly and decisively - right out of high school, she enrolled in Culinary School. “At the time, I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do, but I knew I loved cooking.” A plethora of roles followed - from early years working for the Food Network, a journey at Culinary Arts School to master pastry, working for Drew Nieporent and Biaggio Settepiani. “I learned production cooking on a massive scale. [With Settepani] we were doing all the pastries for hotels and restaurants in and around New York. So, it was my first time doing so many things. We made cakes, jellies and breads…I learned chocolates. I learned so much working for him.”
At this time Latoya became a young mother. “I didn't have the most supportive partnership, and decided to temporarily leave the culinary field because I couldn't afford it to take care of myself and my child.” Latoya pivoted to another career reflected in her upbringing, carpentry. She worked in the carpenters union, and moved onto the electrical union - all while offering catering services to the job sites she worked on. “Imagine going to a construction site - and I'm talking about a real out-here construction site - and you have this young lady sitting there, like, Hey, you guys want to get a plate? I would be upstairs pulling wire or putting in lighting, and then I'd be asking my foreman if I could go down, set up lunch for the crew. I was making extra money any way I could. Anything that I could do to help bridge the gap. So I'm a hustler by nature, you know.”
Regardless of her successes in the carpentry and electrical fields, Latoya said her passion for the culinary world kept tugging at her. “Career wise, food was always a part of me. I just couldn’t let it go” It was then she met her current partner - in love, and life - Chef Femi Frazer. “We had a lot of the same ethos around food. We understood that a restaurant can change a place - literally changes the fabric of communities. We wanted to build something that was part education, part flavor, part storytelling about the power of food. That's where Collective Fare was born.”
Amidst the ensuing turbulence of the pandemic, Latoya and Femi built Collective Fare from the ground up - a multi-faceted, education rooted culinary initiative that's nurturing Brooklyn. “We’re telling our story through food - both through the southern lens, and a broader, diasporic lens. But now it's also about creating something that's sustainable and able to reshape a community. Because we believe that restaurants have that power. And we want to be an example to other restaurants, so they too understand that they have the power to create change.”
Collective Fare is just at the beginning. Beyond their educational programming, catering and non-profit work (as a Rethink Certified Partner, they’ve produced and distributed 311.3K meals), they opened up a brick-and-mortar market and cafe in Clinton Hill last year. Latoya’s determination to bring delicious, dignified and enjoyable food to the community has proven fruitful, and the future is expansive.
“Chefs are artists. We may not understand ourselves as artists, but we are. And food is the medium, in which we're able to tell a story. So the ability we have to tell that story through the diasporic lens is a way for us to help people understand where they come from. And also, to show people that all of our food is connected. Every single one of us, I don't care what race, creed color, what country you come from, through food, there are basic elements of this life that we all share.”
Make it stand out
Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.