The rise of World Central Kitchen as one of the most flexible and extensive emergency feeding operations in the world has been fueled by two powerful forces: chefs who know how to quickly organize kitchens in the most extreme conditions and the undeniable charisma of Chef José Andrés. a wealthy, well-connected restaurateur driven to feed people in disaster zones even when it seems impossible.
On Monday, seven of the organization’s workers were killed by an Israeli airstrike in the Gaza Strip. They had just unloaded 100 tons of food at a warehouse in Deir al Balah, a city in the central Gaza Strip, and were driven out in an organization-marked car and two armored vehicles. One of the dead was a dual citizen of the United States and Canada, and the others were from Australia, Britain, Gaza and Poland.
The range of global reaction to the killings — in a war that has already resulted in the deaths of at least 203 other aid workers, according to the Aid Security Workers Database — is, in part, a reflection of the visibility of World Central Kitchen .
The idea for the organization came to Mr. Andrés in 2010, when he cooked with Haitians living in a post-earthquake camp. He was taught how to prepare beans like the local cooks and realized that preparing dishes specific to a region was necessary to comfort people in a disaster. From there, he helped build schools and train cooks in Haiti and other countries.
His model—using a network of local chefs to serve thousands of meals based on local recipes—came together when he traveled to Houston to help after Hurricane Harvey in 2017.
Later that year, wearing an Orvis fly-fishing vest like a combat jacket with rolls of cash in one pocket and cigars in the other, he flew to Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria. Much of the island was without power. The only water came from bottles. People were hungry. He tapped some chef friends and started cooking, doing what government entities and more organized aid organizations like the Salvation Army couldn’t. At one point, he convinced federal agents on the ground to load food into their vehicles as they went on patrol.
All the team’s efforts were focused on preparing hot food that was familiar to the displaced people. Some fresh fruit and a bowl of sancocho, a Puerto Rican stew that Mr. Andrés and his crew made in large paella pans, were far more comforting than a government-issued MRE or a box of processed American snacks.
“I do it without paperwork and 100 meetings,” he said at the time.
Chris Barrett, an expert on international food aid programs at Cornell University, said that among aid groups, World Central Kitchen has an unusually focused mission, with particular attention to cooking.
“They are a relatively small operation in broader humanitarian terms, but with high visibility, partly because of their leadership and partly because I think they represent a different perspective than the mainstream humanitarian response,” he said.
The group’s presence in Gaza, Mr. Barrett said, was particularly important because of the absence of a robust government aid infrastructure there and because there are few food businesses for the mostly displaced population and aid groups. In Yemen and Syria, he noted, groups have used vouchers that people can redeem at stores, freeing them from some of the on-site cooking responsibilities that World Central Kitchen takes on.
Mr. Andrés was named one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world in 2018. The rise of World Central Kitchen has come as many American chefs have taken on the role of political activist, whether fighting popular causes like feeding the hungry, lobbying the government for Covid relief, speaking out against racism and sexual assault — or, more recently, weighing in on the conflict in Gaza.
“Chefs are some of the most trusted and connected people in their communities,” said Laura Hayes, the senior director of an arm of World Central Kitchen called Chef Corps. “They have this innate desire to improve their communities and help their neighbors.”
Ms. Hayes coordinates a network of 400 chefs and restaurateurs who spring into action when a disaster strikes, volunteering to find kitchens to use, food trucks to ship, and recipes and ingredients that people in need would find more comforting. World Central Kitchen also hires local cooks. Nearly 400 Palestinians work in the organization’s 60 kitchens. “The quality of our food is the most important thing to us, along with speed and urgency,” he said.
With celebrity chefs behind it and a clear mission that Mr. Andrés and his organization regularly broadcast from the stage on social media, World Central Kitchen became a destination for people who wanted their donated dollars to get tangible results. The group raised nearly $30 million in 2019 and then about $250 million in 2020.
In 2021, Jeff Bezos, owner of the Washington Post, presented Mr. Andrés with $100 million through the annual Courage and Civility Award. The chef plowed the money back into the organization. In 2022, World Central Kitchen received $519 million in grants and donations.
The organization, by many accounts, was growing faster than its management structure could support. Last year, Bloomberg News reported allegations that Mr. Andrés had pushed people to deliver food in unsafe conditions and that the team had not properly dealt with a senior manager accused of sexually harassing women. World Central Kitchen promised new safeguards and fired the manager and Nate Mook, the chief executive.
The organization’s work in Ukraine was its first in a war zone. In March, Gaza became the second and showed how nimble World Central Kitchen’s operations had become. Working from dozens of community kitchens in Gaza, staff members and volunteers made hundreds of pans of mujadara, a lentil and rice dish with crispy fried onions, and assembled food kits for Ramadan. The group sent more than 1,700 trucks containing food and cooking equipment.
Sean Carroll, the chief executive of Anera, an aid group that has worked extensively with Mr. Andrés’ team to deliver meals to Gaza, said World Central Kitchen’s operations even in conflict zones had become experienced and highly professional .
World Central Kitchen, which initially struggled to get a permit to enter Gaza, advised Anera on the basics of food aid, he said, such as the weight of a proper portion (one pound), how heavy a delivery bag should be of food for someone who may struggle to carry it and how many meals can be included in larger food packages.
The effort in Ukraine is, according to Mr. Andrés, the largest food aid operation in that country. It began feeding people in February 2022, shortly after the Russian invasion, serving more than 235 million meals there and to refugees in seven other countries. The Ukraine operation has attracted celebrities and star chefs such as Rachael Ray, who is planning her fifth humanitarian visit in May and has volunteered at World Central Kitchen.
A restaurant operated by the organization in Kharkiv, Ukraine, was hit by a missile sometime early in the war, injuring four staff members. a team official said.
Kim O’Donnel, a writer and food writer who lives in Seattle, spent a week volunteering for the organization in Przemysl, where she met Damian Sobol, one of the World Central Kitchen workers killed in Gaza.
The lack of safety protocols and guidelines made her concerned, she said.
“You were kind of on your own when you weren’t working in the kitchen,” he said. The border was less than twelve miles away and he believed the organization was not doing enough to remind people how close the war was. Some volunteers would cross into Ukraine and have trouble returning.
Ms O’Donnel said the lack of a manual or formal directive on security protocols available before she left was a red flag. “It definitely gave me reason to stop,” he said. The work is vital, he said, but there are questions that need to be asked.
“I’m not passing the blame,” he said, “but I hope this is an opportunity to step back and think.”
Noah Weiland contributed reporting.
The sound is produced by Tally Abecassis.
