This week, Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM) kicks off its participation in MuseumWeek—a worldwide festival for cultural institutions on social media. Each day is themed and today celebrates the workers that face the COVID-19 pandemic with #heroesMW.

Even though PAMM’s physical doors are closed, the great minds behind the museum’s Verde restaurant and bar—Constellation Culinary Group—are putting their talents to use for the greater good. We connected with our partner Emily Burster, Constellation Culinary Group general manager at PAMM, to take a look at how they’re helping the community.

Good food connects us and even during these uncertain times, the Miami commissary and special events teams have looked to find an outlet to continue to do what they do best—feed people.

Constellation Culinary Group’s Miami commissary has produced many of the inventive dishes you have come to know and love from attending any Constellation Culinary Group event in South Florida across the portfolio of amazing cultural venues, preferred locations, and within our client’s offices or homes. On a busy day, the kitchen might produce 3,000 or so meals to support the special event operations throughout the region. By mid-March, production at the kitchen was at a standstill due to the COVID-19 shelter in place measures and many of our employees were working remotely or furloughed.

In early April, we were contacted by our sister company—TRIO Community Meals—a provider of fresh and frozen meals nationally. They needed additional support to expand their local capacity and ramp up production to provide more meals for the food insecure in South Florida.  Our team quickly rallied and devised an operational plan to jump into production and start cooking.

Working hand in hand, as of this week, we have reinstated more than 50 jobs and have pivoted to fresh meal production for those in need. This week, we will be producing over 200,000 meals! The production capacity of our commissary is at an all-time high—producing over 30,000 individual meals a day. 

It feels amazing and productive to be back in our kitchens, albeit while practicing social distancing and wearing personal protective gear (safety first), in order to help our community when they need us the most.

This blog post was authored by Emily Burster, Constellation Culinary Group general manager at PAMM.