This episode of “The Pinnacle Pod” explores food accessibility with Max Kaniger, a Pinnacle Prize finalist and founder of Kanbe’s Markets. Max’s passion for providing healthy, affordable options has led him to create a groundbreaking nonprofit that’s transforming food deserts in Kansas City. Learn how Kanbe’s innovative and unique model provides fresh produce through local corner stores, enabling families to make healthier choices. Hear from Max as he discusses Kanbe’s sustainable food distribution model, from sourcing excess food to supporting local farmers and nonprofits. Discover the impact they’re making on the lives of thousands of residents in need. 

Transcript

Maurice Watson: 

Hello, I am Maurice Watson, and this is The Pinnacle Pod, a monthly podcast where we dive into the stories behind Kansas City’s most dynamic emerging leaders. Each episode celebrates the spirit of The Pinnacle Prize, an award that recognizes young visionaries sparking positive change in our community. From subtle ripples to citywide movements, join us to listen, learn, and be inspired. Today our guest is Maxfield Kaniger, who’s also known as Max, Founder and CEO of Kanbe’s Markets, and a 2022 Pinnacle Prize finalist. Growing up in the Brookside area of Kansas City, Max’s family always had a deep connection to food and how it can bring people and communities together. Currently serving more than 250,000 residents, Kanbe’s Markets provides access to fresh, affordable, and healthy foods to people experiencing food insecurity by working to deliver fresh produce to local stores within Kansas City’s food deserts. With innovative food inventory and delivery systems that are more inclusive, and by enhancing small business and corner store offerings, Kanbe’s has taken steps to empower individuals to make healthy choices. After identifying the hundreds of locally owned convenience stores, gas stations and corner bodegas with deep ties in the community, Kanbe’s first Healthy Corner store location began to sell fresh and affordable fruits and vegetables in 2018. By 2020, their stores grew to 12 locations and today they count over 40 locations. Max, welcome to The Pinnacle Pod. 

Max Kaniger: 

Thanks for having me. It’s good to see you, Maurice. 

Maurice Watson: 

Before we dig into your work and Kanbe’s Markets’ mission, can we define what a food desert is for our listeners?  

Max Kaniger: 

Yeah, I’d love to. And I mean I think we could do a whole podcast on just the term food desert or some of the other terms out there, whether it’s food swamp or food apartheid. We use food desert most often because that’s the term the USDA uses. And so, they define it as an area ranging from about a half mile without consistent access to fresh, healthy, and affordable food. 

Maurice Watson: 

What’s food justice? 

Max Kaniger: 

Food justice for us is kind of an idea or concept that we believe that everybody should have access to good, healthy, real food to take care of their families. 

Maurice Watson: 

What do the food deserts look like in our community in Kansas City?  

Max Kaniger: 

Oh, that’s a great question. So, Kansas City is a little unique. Every city across the country has food deserts or has these areas without access. Kansas City makes it a little easier, unfortunately for our work, because it’s really everything east of Troost. And there are a few pockets here and there where there are some grocery stores, but other than that, the average time that it takes to get to a grocery store if you live east of Troost and have to take the bus is 45 minutes. 

Maurice Watson: 

Our listeners may be interested in hearing what’s the story behind the brand Kanbe, where does that name come from?  

Max Kaniger: 

The name comes from me not being super creative, but hopeful. So, for me, Kanbe’s is an idea what the future of food can be. 

Maurice Watson: 

So, describe a little bit more what you do, what’s Kanbe’s all about? How does it work? 

Max Kaniger: 

Oh my gosh, that’s my favorite question because Kanbe’s, at the end of the day, is about people. I grew up in a restaurant family. I grew up kind of surrounded by the fun enjoyment of food and I’ve always thought of it as the best tool to bring people together. And so, when I kind of got a little bit older and I realized there are so many people around our city that don’t have this experience, that don’t have access to fresh, real food, I wanted to do something about it. And of all the big problems that are out there, our food system seems to be one that is fixable. If the two big problems we hear about most often are too much food going to waste and too many hungry people, those to me seem like things that can kind of fix each other and that’s what Kanbe’s exists to do. 

Maurice Watson: 

So, explain to us what is the fix for the food inventory system problem and what are the innovative ways that you approach reducing food waste? 

Max Kaniger: 

Yeah, so that’s the crux of what we do is we use a lot of the excess food from wholesalers. They will donate to us where we will have volunteers come through and kind of triage it. So, we have kind of four paths of redirection that that food goes to once it comes to us. The top-quality stuff—this is the grocery-store-perfect things that you couldn’t tell there’s anything wrong with—is what we send out to our healthy corner stores. That coupled with food that we are buying from these same wholesalers give us a good variety of quality, affordable produce. Because, if we look at our purchasing in aggregate, if we’re able to sell some of that donated food, then we can sell the stuff that we are buying at a reduced cost. So, we can overall make sure that all of the prices that we are stocking the food at our healthy corner stores stay at an affordable level. And then the other tiers then of food that come into our warehouse get sent out to a variety of different partners. So, we have a little over 60 different nonprofits that are feeding people via different meals like the traditional soup kitchens and food pantries that are taking our tier two food. So, this is food that is still perfectly good to eat, but not something that we would necessarily want to sell. So, it’s something that you really gotta use that day or the next. The tier three stuff is what we are actually getting to animal feed. So, we have a number of different chicken and pig farmers that are coming to pick up from us. So, we get food to them. And then finally the fourth tier, because we have the help and support of volunteers, we’re able to sort through all of the food, so we compost everything. So, if there’s something that really is beyond its usable life, we can make sure that we take the, you know, if you picture lettuce that comes wrapped in plastic, we can take that plastic off of it. We can wash and recycle the plastic, we can recycle the cardboard, and the lettuce itself can get composted. 

Maurice Watson: 

Wow. So, your organization has experienced very impressive growth, growing to 40 locations currently? 

Max Kaniger: 

Yeah, well actually we open three more this week. 

Maurice Watson: 

43! 

Max Kaniger: 

Now we’ll be in 50 by the end of the year. 

Maurice Watson: 

Wow, that’s tremendous. Wonderful. Congratulations.  

Max Kaniger: 

Thank you.  

Maurice Watson: 

What does this mean to the community and what has been your approach to scaling? 

Max Kaniger: 

Our approach to scaling has been, really, we’re trying to be with this program as intentional as possible. Through the pandemic, we had to take on a variety of different programs that were more emergent to meet different needs. We’ve let a lot of those go as things are getting back to a more normal state. For the community it means that each time we open a new location, we’re hopefully adding a new place for a family to walk down the street and have access then to fresh, healthy and affordable food. And like I said earlier, right now, the average time it takes to get to the grocery store if you live east of Troost is 45 minutes. If we can cut that down to a five-minute walk or a four-to-five-minute walk, that gives people a really realistic opportunity to put good food on the table for their families. And I think for us in a position to create systemic change, I think we have a responsibility to start there. There’s so many things I want us in this organization to do in the future, whether it’s educational programming or creating meals ourselves or things like that that are important in the long run, but first we have to just show up. We have to be there, we have to be intentional, we have to create real relationships with the people that live in these communities. And there’s so many wonderful, wonderful people that we’ve gotten to know over the past few years. 

Maurice Watson: 

You are clearly very passionate about this work, and I’d love to get to the root of that passion. Tell us a little bit about you. How did you get started in this work and why does this cause call to you so strongly? And you’ve explained some of it based on your family background. 

Max Kaniger: 

Yeah, that’s the root of it. Again, I’m going to keep dropping the crux of it because that just works too well. But I did, I grew up with a family that always loved food and that’s where all of our best arguments, our best discussions, all of that were around the dinner table. And it’s kind of driven me to want to do more. I’ve also been very, very fortunate that I’ve had a lot of people look after me and believe in me. And as I grew up, it just pushed me to do a little bit more. I always felt kind of a responsibility to kind of reach out and see where I could help others rather than just myself. I’m very lucky that Kansas City has supported me on this kind of crazy vision because it’s been an interesting ride, and we have big dreams to come. 

Maurice Watson: 

What’s next for you and for Kanbe’s? 

Max Kaniger: 

Oh my gosh. Well, for Kanbe’s, I’m hoping that in the next two years our goal is actually to grow to 130 locations, effectively eliminating food deserts in Kansas City. So access, by that USDA term, would be solved, that everybody anywhere in Kansas City could walk out their door and within a half mile—I think it’ll be a whole lot closer than that with 130 locations—will have access to fresh, healthy, and affordable food. And we will be doing it in a sustainable way. And that can then be a model that we can replicate in cities all across the country because we are still the only ones doing it this way, and I’d love to be able to share this with the rest of the country and perhaps the world. 

Maurice Watson: 

So let me be clear, Kanbe’s is the only organization addressing food insecurity and food deserts the way you’re doing it in the country? 

Max Kaniger: 

Correct. There are other organizations that use corner stores, convenience stores as an access point. None of them are providing that consistent distribution partnership like we are. And it’s kind of what makes us unique and it’s something that we are getting attention from around the country. So, we’ve had had interest from a number of cities, you know, some as close as, you know, Wichita and Topeka and St. Louis and Chicago, New York, LA, Atlanta, Macon, Georgia. There’s cities all across the country that are starting to reach out, wondering if we can start to replicate what we’re doing there. I think we still have a little bit to learn, but I’m sharing everything that we’ve learned thus far in the hopes that they can kickstart something of their own 

Maurice Watson: 

With plans to expand beyond the Kansas City market, how will you decide where to go next? 

Max Kaniger: 

That’s what I’m hoping to learn over the next couple years. I think I need to, not only from a personal standpoint, not only decide where to go next, but how to do it well, how to do it with the right intention, how to set the values that we have as an organization in stone kind of, so that as we were to expand to other places, the community and people are always at the forefront. And then I gotta decide if I’m the right person to run it or not, because as this thing grows, there may or may not be somebody better to take the helm. And I want to make sure that, again, the people and the organization are growing in the best way possible. And if that means it’s me, fine. But if there’s somebody else that would be better suited for that kind of expansion, even better.  

Maurice Watson: 

How can our listeners connect with you? 

Max Kaniger: 

They can come to our website kanbesmarkets.org, so that’s kanbesmarkets.org. Or find us on Facebook, Instagram, X, LinkedIn, all under the same name. You can reach out at info@kanbesmarkets.org. Come volunteer and get to know us. 

Maurice Watson: 

Been wonderful hearing about Kanbe’s Markets and the work that you’re doing in the community, Max. Thanks for listening, and be sure to sign up for our newsletter at pinnacleprizekc.org to continue to listen, learn and be inspired by dynamic emerging leaders in our community. 

Hosted By Maurice Watson

Maurice is a recognized community leader and has more than thirty years of experience working in law, social and public policy and board governance as a lawyer, advisor, and board member. He is the co-founder and principal of Credo Philanthropy Advisors.