The Nonprofit Feeding Ugly Vegetables to Hundreds of People Every Day

“Neither food nor people should ever go to waste.”

This is the motto that Robert Egger has fully lived up to at LA Kitchen, his self-sustaining social enterprise that was built around the premise of transforming bruised, overripe fruits and vegetables into amazing, balanced meals for the elderly and other people in need. In the process, he’s been transforming the lives of his loyal staff, made up of mostly ex-convicts, recovering drug addicts and alcoholics, veteran gangbangers, and many other people just honestly looking for a second chance.

I am sitting in front of Egger in his tiny office at the LA Kitchen facilities in Lincoln Heights.