Even with decades of experience between them, the chefs face challenges in these new roles.  

“The biggest challenges are the sheer volume of meals we need to produce at a time, and the fact that we rely on what food is donated from our partners and local farms,” shares Brian. “We don’t usually know what’s going to come in, so while we can plan a little bit, whatever shows up is what we have to work with. That’s a big difference from the restaurant world where everything is thought out way ahead of time.” 

“Once, over 500 pounds of cilantro arrived at our door, and we had to figure out how to turn that into a week’s worth of meals,” adds Colin. “I ended up making a sofrito that we are still using today in marinades, chili verdes, and salsas. We’ve also had to develop methods for stretching our limited proteins, which arrive in varying grinds and fat contents, and that we want to incorporate into as many meals as possible.” 

When Preble Street first envisioned the Food Security Hub (FSH) in 2021, one of the goals for the 30,000 square foot facility was to prepare and store thousands of meals that could be on hand for natural disasters, pandemics, and other kinds of emergencies. Today, the FSH is designed to cook up to 10,000 meals daily with freezer capacity to store 50,000 meals, and the team there is carefully testing recipes and production to eventually meet that capacity. 

“I always feel like everyone is supporting us, they’re rooting for us, and wanting us to reach those big goals,” says Romann. “I love being responsible for that. Our first goal is to have 10,000 meals stored, and the reason behind that is we don’t want anything sitting in the freezer too long. We send meals out fresh, but we also send out meals that we freeze. We taste test each meal after 1 week, 1 month, 2 months, 3 months in the freezer to make sure it meets our standards. As we build up these partnerships with agencies who need these meals, that food is moving now. Then we can start to try to get to the next level, which 20,000 stored meals.” 

The FSH was just celebrating its grand opening in October 2025 when the SNAP crisis emerged with the threat that 170,000 Mainers would not receive SNAP benefits in November and thus not have enough food for their families. Immediately, the chefs jumped into action. 

“It felt good to say ‘yes,’” shares Romann. “Preble Street leadership came to us and said, can we double the number of meals we’re making…starting tomorrow? We said yes, and we did it.” 

“Exactly,” adds Brian. “We all have this huge belief that food is not a privilege. Of course, we’re going to react and say ‘yes, we can gladly do this.’”