Serving Up Equity

Here at Ingredient, we’re passionate about leveraging our decades of experience in culinary development and content marketing to solve key issues for our clients—in just about any form they may take. When All Square, a civil rights social enterprise based in our backyard of Minneapolis, Minnesota, approached us to renovate their restaurant menu, we knew we had to take a bite.

All Square channels wealth and power to those impacted by mass incarceration through its cornerstone fellowship program. Direct employment is paired with professional development, community support, and mental health services. Together with its sister organization, the Legal Revolution, and local partners, All Square promotes JD education for individuals currently incarcerated.

Key to All Square’s service model is the external-facing nature of the work: after all, reintegration must be a two-way street. All Square owns and operates a craft grilled cheese restaurant in which fellows and formerly incarcerated individuals are directly employed at above-living-wage pay. After six years of restaurant operations, the All Square team felt the menu needed a refresh. As local culinarians—and with our commitment to advancing causes that build diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging in our community, Ingredient and All Square are a perfect pairing.

We began with a site visit to All Square to taste current items and check out the restaurant’s suite of equipment and workflow. From there, our culinary team extensively tested new recipes, with a particular focus on ingredient balance, portioning, and executability. As creatives, we also added a couple of new, optional menu items like: a signature, house-made Square Sauce that can be served with each meal.

After the recipes were written, we converted them into a step-by-step guide for internal training and reference at the Square. This ensures the recipes are trainable and repeatable in a busy commercial environment. (All Square loyalists fret not—we didn’t change too much!)

From the business perspective, partnering with All Square represented more than simply an opportunity to write recipes for a returning client. Most of Ingredient’s recipe development services are rendered to clients in grocery and CPG, and are typically written for a home cook. Commercial recipe development—using, for example, larger batch sizes, by-weight measurements, and limited instructive copy—is a meaningfully different activity, and one we were happy to execute.

Ultimately, our team was ecstatic to partner with All Square because we are so naturally aligned in so many ways—as foodies, Minneapolitans, and jointly committed to building equity both within and beyond our local community. This partnership advances Ingredient’s goals beyond just helping our clients sell food—we can do some real good, too, and we’re always seeking more opportunities in this vein. Our superpower is activating our whole team to solve whatever juicy issues our clients may face, even—and dare I say, especially—when it means toeing outside our comfort zone.

We’re happy to report a successful completion of the menu renovation effort! And of course, go eat at All Square, located at 4047 Minnehaha Ave in Minneapolis. The new menu will roll out in early 2025.