Matt Jozwiak, Rethink Food founder, spoke with Yahoo Finance about how the company is helping frontline workers during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

Video Transcript

MYLES UDLAND: We're joined now by Matt Jozwiak-- he is the founder of Rethink Food-- for the work that they're doing right now with Eleven Madison Park, that restaurant group, to create some temporary kitchens that are helping to feed frontline workers here in the city and just kind of keep some of the gears of the restaurant industry turning.

So Matt, I guess if you could kind of outline what this program is from a high level for us, and we'll kind of go through, I guess, what the status is of this project and the restaurant business here in New York. Because we're all kind of anxiously looking at how do we get through this period, and then how do we reemerge on the other side.

MATT JOZWIAK: Sure. Yeah, this was one of the first six restaurants that we dealt with in our 30-- we had a goal of 30 restaurants. And the idea is, is to utilize existing infrastructure. Right now, the government and philanthropy is paying for the same thing three times. We're paying for unemployment. We're paying to keep restaurant owners afloat. And then we're also paying for emergency food.

The idea is, is combine that and kind of get more bang out of your buck so that we have the people that really know how to cook, really know to make delicious food making single packaged meal safely, and kind of decentralize the food system.

Our long-term hope is that this is actually going to be something that never-- that always remains within restaurants. Restaurants are low margin businesses that are very hard, our businesses, and what we want to be able to do is see instead of spending philanthropy money to create more and more and more nonprofits, why don't we just use that philanthropy money, give it to the restaurants?

They act as workforce development programs anyway. They're some of the only jobs you can get for $15 an hour where you get two meals and learn some language skills. And always kind of have that underlying program. So the silver lining that we're seeing is that if we could combine the philanthropy sector with the restaurant sector-- I was a cook for a long time myself-- we could really make something beautiful, and then a lot of the food waste out there as well.

JEN ROGERS: I commend you on the work that you are doing. One question I have for you is we've had Danny Meyer on. We've had Tom Colicchio on, people that have closed their restaurants over the safety concerns of their workers. So how are you making food safely? How do you make sure that people that are coming in, that that's also done in a way that works within social distancing?

MATT JOZWIAK: Absolutely. You know, we have to make food. We talk about this a lot at Rethink. Like, there's really no option. You know, senior citizens are at home. And, you know, they need access to meals. The frontline workers need access to meals. A lot of the [INAUDIBLE] population need access to meals.

So it's a question about how we do it, not if we do it. And by breaking up, basically, all of this stuff into its component parts and having six different locations throughout the city, you can shut down one if somebody gets sick. That's the big problem with kind of, like, centralized food production.

If one person-- and at Rethink, at any of our restaurants, you come in, you get your temperature taken, you fill out a questionnaire. You're given a brand new mask, you're giving a set of gloves, sanitizer, and then you go on your way. And you work in-- if you do have to work close to somebody, which you have to do in food production-- you're in very, very small groups so that if somebody does get sick, we shut down the group. And then we get them out of there.

The idea is, is it's not if it will happen, if there will be, if one of the many workers that we have working throughout New York City, it will happen. But we can't-- if we shut down, there's going to be at least 15-- you know, 10,000 to 15,000 people that are ultimately going to be without access to food.

And that's just not OK. So we have to be able to shut down one, spread the work across the other restaurants, which are siloed. So we're kind of social distancing by making a bunch of little pockets, instead of putting everybody in one place.

RICK NEWMAN: Hey, Matt. Rick Newman. So on this idea of the pathway back to normal, you're just hearing some ideas about when restaurants, movie theaters, and the rest do reopen. People are going to have to be spread out more. Does that make sense in a restaurant? I mean, obviously, you can go from having 20 tables in the dining room to having five tables. But that doesn't mean it's economically viable or it'll necessarily work. Does that kind of thing make sense to you?

MATT JOZWIAK: No, I mean, I don't think so. You know, I think that the fundamental structure of a restaurant needs to change. You know, I think that we-- as a restaurant community that I was from, you know, it's always kind of looked down upon in a lot of ways. And we really need to look at these businesses as valuable businesses.

And that's why we're trying to insert philanthropy in it. That's why that's the goal, is that it's not going to be like, all right, four weeks from Tuesday, everything opens back up, and it's like a light switch. This is going to be a hard road back to where we were, if we even-- even if we even go back there.

So we need this backbone in philanthropy. And as, you know, something that we're really not-- I'm not hearing a lot about, restaurant workers are low income workers. They work for $15 an hour at a lot of restaurants. There is no step before poverty. So a lot of these people are going to end up falling into the social safety net. And they're going to need services like food banks, like soup kitchens, you know, if an employer runs out.

So that's what we have to be aware of. Basically, if we're not employing people, we're going to end up having to feed them and maintain them on the other side.

AKIKO FUJITA: And Matt, quick question to you about these small business loans that have now gone out or are trying to get out. A lot of the restaurant owners I've spoken to have said that this just doesn't make sense in terms of the structure of the loan for these restaurants. We're not going to hire people back if the demand's not there just to pay people to stand around.

I'm curious to get your thoughts on the structure of the loan, how restrictive it is for restaurants, and what specifically you think would be a better stimulus package to really help out some of these restaurants that are struggling.

MATT JOZWIAK: This is what we want to do. This is what we're proposing, is basically we're looking for $2.5 billion to do 25,000 restaurants in America. We have each restaurant around $100,000. We say you're responsible for producing single packaged meals.

We are working with Deloitte to develop basically a streamlined package. You sign up on the website, you apply for it. At Rethink, once this is all out, if we can get the government fund it in the next tranche, you know, you sign up, you get the cash. You respond. And then it's divvied out over a course of six to eight weeks. And you're responsible for producing meals. Those meals then go to Meals on Wheels.

No, we don't want people standing anyway, and nobody wants to go to a restaurant just to stand around anyway [INAUDIBLE]. So it was rushed. I mean, that was pretty clear. It was rushed. But that's OK. You know, there's a better way to do it. And what we're trying to do is build it.

The reason we acted so fast is because we needed to kind of learn how to build this model quickly. So we opened up [? Littleton, ?] the first restaurant site, like, three weeks ago, you know, like, right at the cusp of this. We're trying to build a solid model where it can work everywhere across the country.

MYLES UDLAND: All right, Matt Jozwiak is the founder of Rethink Food. Really interesting stuff you guys are doing. Hopefully, we'll check in with you as the plan continues to roll out. Maybe get that money in the next tranche. Thanks for taking the time today.

MATT JOZWIAK: Thank you.