Food Justice at Liberty’s

If you stroll through the LK facility, you’ll find three huge freezers that don’t belong to us — they belong to Top Box, a community nonprofit focused on healthy food access. Here at Liberty’s Kitchen, we’re all about that! We sat down with Co-Founder and Acting Director Sam Heyman to learn more about this great cause.

What is Top Box?

Top Box Foods-New Orleans, is a 501 (c)(3) non-profit organization with a simple mission: to empower communities in the fight against food inequality by providing access to healthy foods at an affordable price. We accomplish our mission by partnering with community organizations and houses of worship located in areas that are flooded with fast food restaurants but lack full service grocery stores. We offer community members high-quality fresh produce and frozen lean meats sourced from the same suppliers as major grocery stores and restaurants. We employ mostly volunteers and with little overhead, we are able to keep our prices affordable, typically half of what our customers would pay at the store.

We saw the need to start Top Box after learning about the dire state of nutrition in New Orleans’ food deserts. High rates of diabetes, hypertension, and high cholesterol plague areas of the city that lack access to a grocery store. In some parts of the city, individuals must drive over 4 miles to get to a store with fresh produce.

Volunteers and customer, Leo Bealieu at the Tulane Memorial Baptist Church

For the past three years we have worked tirelessly to make this social business thrive. We have sold over 85,000 pounds of fresh produce, over 81,000 pounds of frozen groceries, and saved our customers over $150,000 dollars on fresh produce alone. As our sales steadily increase we will approach self-sustainability. However, we will always need some donations and development dollars in order to keep our prices affordable for our customer base.

Unlike some charitable organizations, we offer our customers a hand up, not a hand out. Our customers are proud people that only wish to live happy and keep their families healthy. They are mothers and fathers, grandmothers and grandfathers. They are black, white, Hispanic, old, young, and everything in between. They rely upon Top Box for their monthly intake of fresh produce and we want to empower them to make healthy choices.

Tell us about yourself.

Acting Director Sam Heyman

I was raised just outside of Philadelphia and went to Tulane University. During my underclassman years I became enamored with Tulane’s Social Innovation and Social Entrepreneurship (SISE) minor. For the first time in my life I was exposed to an alternative to the charity model and I became absorbed with the social business concept. During the spring of my freshman year, I was able to take some of the theory I learned in class and use it to help start Top Box. I enjoy my work with Top Box because it connects me to our partners at a grassroots level. Every day I connect with New Orleanians who, in the face of incomprehensible inequality, turn to community for help. I am just happy that we can offer the communities we work with a hand up. Later in life, I hope to effect societal inequities at the policy level.

What’s the vision for a year from now? For thirty years from now?

Our team would love to see Top Box expand, not just survive. We are working to make the business model as sustainable as possible. Our hope is to drive sales to a point where we can rely less on grants and donations. In a year from now, we hope to take Top Box into new markets in South East Louisiana, boosting both our impact and our monthly volume.

What’s the connection between Top Box and Liberty’s Kitchen?

In 2015, Top Box Foods was accepted into the Propeller Start Up Accelerator. During our time with Propeller, LK founder Janet Davas consulted us on our current operation and how she thought we might be able to grow. Her help was invaluable and crucial to our vision for the business.

Volunteer Leah Baer carries produce boxes.

Additionally, LK executive director Dave Emond has watched us grow from a small club at Tulane into a fully functioning business. He invited us to join the LK community in our current capacity a few months ago. We were in a fix. We had to find a space to store our frozen groceries in the days leading up to our monthly delivery and Dave came through in the clutch! Our partnership with LK has allowed us to increase the variety of lean meats and frozen items we offer. Additionally, local storage allows us to customize each order to a specific customer’s needs. Customers with a choice are happier, and for that, we owe Liberty’s a ton of appreciation.

Anything else you’d like people to know?

If you are interested in learning more about Top Box, give us a shout at sam@topboxfoods.com! We are constantly looking for more volunteers, for new funding sources, and for additional partners in our fight against food inequality and hunger.