Economic development
An OTB.Global Super Kitchen promotes economic opportunities for many segments of the local population affecting the quality of life for many.
The foundation for economic growth lies in providing employment, micro-enterprise opportunities, enhancing the quality of life by reducing emissions of toxic fuel sources, reducing deforestation, strengthening markets through the acquisition of raw materials from local sources and bolstering tax revenues.
Employment of Locals:
Unemployment has a tremendous social and economic cost, both to the unemployed and society as a whole. Unemployment harms individuals, families, neighborhoods, villages and communities.
Each OTB.Global facility employs locals for each of its facilities thereby reducing unemployment. Employing up to 15 employees per shift, a typical kitchen will include management staff, customer service representatives, cooks, maintenance staff, security personnel and distribution staff. Paying living wages to all its indigenous labor staff is standard practice and a OTB.Global kitchen in a community significantly impacts many families.
The economic and social multipliers of job creation are many. Increased spending and rising incomes impacts the community as economic multipliers while the social multipliers concern the benefits to individuals, families, neighborhoods, and communities with decreased crime and family disruption. Improved income distribution and a reduction in inequality combined with improvements to government budgets are additional benefits to job creation.
The hiring and training of a local workforce is a key element in improving the wellbeing and quality of life of the employee. Employment provides a vital link between the individual and society and enables people to contribute to society and achieve personal fulfillment.
Rural Enterprise Development:
Beyond our production facilities, local farmers experience economic growth as they now have a high volume producer to sell their crops to.
Some OTB.Global clients have even assembled local farmers to create “farm cooperative” where small native farmers coordinate their production efforts to supply the OTB.Global kitchen with produce. These initiatives help eliminate oversupply and monoculture farming by providing a readymade market for their crop production.
These initiatives pave the way for our partners to assist with agro-economic development and other agricultural innovations furthering stability to the local farming community.
Local merchants also benefit from a OTB.Global kitchen as additional food items, spices, cleaning supplies and the like are purchased to support the kitchen operations. A fleet of vehicles is purchased to deliver meals and the vehicle purchase, fuel and maintenance are all economic stimulants to the local economy as well.
Micro-enterprise:
Micro-enterprise food vendor opportunities exist with an OTB.Global facility as entrepreneurs are able to purchase inexpensive, ready to eat, meals that are culturally consistent and resold for a profit in areas of need.
In regions where restaurants are few or too costly, businesses are able to purchase and resell hot meals to their employees for lunch. This has been a successful endeavor for businesses in Haiti where employees saved nearly 80% over the cost of restaurant food, helping insure that an employee would eat a lunch and simultaneously increasing discretionary income.
Tax Revenues:
A final way an OTB.Global facility provides economic development is through tax revenues generated. In most cases and OTB.Global facility is a for-profit entity that will meet all local and federal tax requirements. Additional tax revenues allow governmental agencies the ability to provide goods and services to its citizens.