Transcript

Andrea Putting: 0:07

Welcome to the social mission revolution. Each week we explore some of the greatest and untold stories of businesses. And everyday people who are making the ultimate impact world through social mission. They share their stories, their inspirations, their successes and heartaches, on the way to making that difference that we all long to make. This is social mission revolution. And this is your host, Andrea Putting. Welcome to the social mission revolution. And today I’m here with Alex Dekker. And we’re going to have a interesting conversation, I am sure about what Alex is up to in the world. And I’m really looking forward to sharing that with you. So welcome, Alex.

Alex Dekker: 1:03

Thank you for having me.

Andrea Putting: 1:05

So I’d love to ask you that question that I asked everyone at the start of my podcast, if there was just one thing for you to fight for, what would that be?

Alex Dekker: 1:13

I would fight for a base level of living a universal standard. And that means no matter where you go wrong in life, no matter what happens, what terrible events happen to you, there is a base level of compassion, and resources that you can access from anyone that would allow you to get back off that fate and where that is. Who knows what what that looks like, who knows, but that’s essentially the safety net. So many people have offered by their parents should be available and accessible to everyone. Because otherwise, we’re just creating poverty traps left, right and center.

Andrea Putting: 1:52

And that is a real important one that I think governments are too scared to deal with. Because it is a hard one, it is a very hard one to deal with. But it’s a really important one, to have that standard of living. That’s available to everyone.

Alex Dekker: 2:13

And we do have it to some degree in Australia. I’m not sure how international your listeners are, where we have our Centrelink benefits scheme where if you are below a certain income level, you can get a income in return from the government just for existence. And that does wonders in that it means people at least have an income. Now that income is below the poverty line. And there’s many calls for it to be raised above it too. Yes, several poverty line is and then some. But it also doesn’t include things like dental care, etc, etc. Meaning that even with that partial safety net we have, which is better than most countries out there. There’s still a lot of ways where being poor makes you poor. And being poor just incurs extra expenses, which you can’t afford. Yeah, like housing, like housing, like proper medical care, like mental health care, like education, all these things, not necessarily as accessible to someone who’s who’s come from an incredibly tough background and incredibly, you know, a really begotten place. It’s so much harder for them to lift themselves out of poverty than it would be for someone who’s come from a middle to upper class backgrounds. Like myself a middle class background, it was incredibly easy for me to get into university and do the things that I’m currently doing, which I guess just probably introduction, I

Andrea Putting: 3:34

will get to that. Yeah, yeah. So I really resonate with what you’re talking about, because I know that how hard it can be not in my own personal experience. But for example, my son lived in America for several years and his income was well below what we’d get in Australia and no, he had to reporting back to Australia so that he could start living it he knew that he was better off on the unemployment benefits in Australia than what he was on his low wage in the US. So and it’s across the board it’s it’s a hard it’s a hard thing for people to to be when they’re when they’re down, they just keep going down rather than up.

Alex Dekker: 4:20

Oh 100% It is it is that poverty cycle where Yeah, being poor, every single part of society becomes part of what you it’s harder for you to find time to develop social networks, which most of us use to build ourselves up and help extend ourselves in life and act as a safety net after you leave your parents home. Yeah, when you’re a poor individual that you find less time to do that and the people you’re able to socialize with because of a bunch of different you know, unpassable barriers such as even the cost of going to the movies with some folk or the cost of going out to dinner with some people you get along well with and you want to become better friends, but if they want to go to a restaurant that costs you $100 Tonight, you’re not going to be able to do that. Right? And so we’ve created this real stratified society, where, if you’re poor, you’re gonna stay poor unless some miracle happens to you.

Andrea Putting: 5:14

Yes, so let’s let’s talk about what it is that you’re doing in the world, because it’s quite exciting, I think. So you’d like to share? What is it that Alex Dekker does?

Alex Dekker: 5:26

Well, I run an incredibly egotistical early, titled nonprofit called Alex makes meals. As as the more more intuitive of your listeners might be able to figure that’s a food chariot. So what we do is we prepare meals, and we we help supply those meals to other charity partners all throughout throughout our local Region. And that’s turned instead of just being a charity is now a piece of infrastructure for these charities. So they base entire programs off receiving our meals, that which they then give up. And we’ve been around, geez, two and a half years now, which is no time at all, but seems like an incredible amount of time to me, as you’ve probably realized. And we’ve always seen as the the need for food out there. And food being the single most basic need of a human individual. Right at the bottom of Maslow’s hierarchy, you know, it’s at levels, there’s a level of demand for food and food relief that we never could have anticipated and is not being met by our society as it stands in one of the richest societies on earth. How we can let that happen. It’s beyond me.

Andrea Putting: 6:39

And I would think that, especially over the last couple of years, and you’re in Melbourne, and we had such a harsh lockdown. More and more people with so many people were unable to work, were unable to just supply those basic needs, put an enormous strain on charities on so your service became even more valuable than it would have been?

Alex Dekker: 7:11

Well, yeah, we started response to the COVID lockdowns. Yeah. During the first lockdown, we realized that a lot of people, for many, many reasons, weren’t able to meet their basic food demands. And I was just a uni student at the time. I was 19, actually, when we started the students, and I figured, oh, you know what, there’s probably some people would need within my network. My sister was one, she was a frontline of working in Australia’s first COVID ward. And I went, don’t worry, I’ll make you a meal. And I can probably make of some other people. I put out a post on Facebook, that post went absolutely insane viral. And within a couple hours, about 400 people asked for food. And I had no idea how to do that. I had no resources, no skills, no nothing. And by all logical writes, I shouldn’t have. But I figured that you know what? I’m young. Let’s give it a go. And so I asked for help from some people I knew I cold called a couple companies, chefs restaurants and said, Hey, look, this is happening. Can you help? And surprisingly, for reasons I still don’t fully comprehend, people said, Yes, we can. And so a week later, we sent out 800 meals, which seemed like an insane turnaround to us at the time. Now we’re sending about that much out of day. And so we realized then back in the first wave of COVID, that, Oh, this is we shouldn’t have this many people reaching out to us this quickly. Right? There shouldn’t be this many people in immediate need, where one Facebook post can get 400 people asking for food, from just some random occurred in some random town in Melbourne. It shouldn’t happen. And so as locked down to win time, and then we’d live went in and out of the harshest lockdowns we could, and COVID ways went up and down. We realized, Oh, we were needed outside of these COVID lock downs as well, like people still need food even without the lockouts. And so we we essentially went Screw it. We’re sticking around forever. We have no ethical choice but to continue and expand. And so today we’re making about three and a half to four and a half 1000 meals a week across. We’ve just crossed our 400,000 meal Mark ish. Might fact check that later. I think it might be free 90 actually. Yeah,

Andrea Putting: 9:40

that’s an awful lot of food.

Alex Dekker: 9:42

It’s a lot. And we do that with about 50 charities across Victoria, which seems insane, but then you realize that waitlist at the moment is about 30,000 meals long. And that’s 30,000 meals a week, every week, week in week out. And each of those are four warmed or partially formed charities which have been around for years, and they’re like, yeah, the food we were getting at the moment the food we have access to is not up to scratch. It is not something we’re able to do. And we’ve been continuously getting the feedback that ours is because I originally made it for my sister. That first meal was a lasagna uncooked. Because that we anchored the quality of food we make as the kind of quality I would cook for my sister or you would cook for your kids. Yes, and children, right. Yeah. And it turns out, if you’re on the street, if you’re in financial difficulties, getting a meal that is, has any sense of dignity, let alone the kind of dignity you provide to your family. Impossible out there. Oh, my God, there’s this chick Peters in which is just a can of chickpeas with salts boiled. There’s countless variations on pasture Napoli, which is essentially, Legos, tomato paste in 40 kilograms of pasta just stood around on season. And all of this stuff. Not only is it not meeting their protein and energy needs for someone out there on the street and someone, you know, in a real tough situation, it’s not going to be able to meet their basic physical needs. But it also serves as nothing but a reminder that, hey, you’re not as good as us, you don’t deserve food, the same way we do the food, the stuff you get is the bottom at about, if you want any, if you want anything better, you should be better. And that’s firstly, no way to treat another human being. Secondly, it’s never going to help people expand themselves and get out of a cycle of poverty, right. If you are constantly malnourished and constantly tired and cold, you’re never going to be able to apply for that job and get it, you’re never going to be able to keep that job show up on time, you’re never gonna be able to figure out your life circumstances to make them work for you. And what that looks like it’s not up to us, all we can do is provide the fruit.

Andrea Putting: 11:57

I understand that from my father, many years ago, worked with the homeless in Melbourne. And they were donated constantly. Meat Pies, which was great from the company that they were supplying their excess food to the homeless however, meat pie after meat pie after meat pie is not good for people. And and you said it’s this constant reminder to them that that they’re not of value to do that. So my father, he would he was not the cook. He was the he was the general manager or or whatever it was. But he would get in there early early in the morning, and he would open up all the pies, scoop it out and make it into a stew so that they had something different. Oh, throw some veggies in there. Yes.

Alex Dekker: 12:57

Like it’s a wonderful solution from him. Yeah, to a problem that shouldn’t really exist right now. It’s and so much of food relief in in all of Australia and all over the world is reliant on scraps. We We’ve set a blanket no to any ad hoc food donations. So we don’t people try and donate us, you know, Oh, we didn’t sell this much eggplant from the market this morning. Can you take a we have a pallet of expired. X Y Zed, can you take it? And we’ve just said a blanket no to all of that. Yeah, because what it says at the end of the day is, hey, we can’t sell this to anyone and no one’s willing to eat this. Can you give it to the homeless? Can you get it as a tax write off for us so that you can give it to the homeless and that’s both a waste of time from our end because we’re gonna have to sort of spend more time sorting out rotten vegetables from fruit fresh vegetables. And as I said, it’s just a nother insult to these people who are already at the hardest part part of life and already facing circumstances that these folks can’t imagine. I had a group reach out to us fairly recently and say, Hey, you’re so lucky. We’ve got a phenomenal donation coming for you. We’ve we figured out a way to donate you guys so much of our stock I’m like cool, what is it and then like it is expired sprinkles. And I don’t know what to do with that.

Andrea Putting: 14:30

What do you what are you going to do with sprinkles make a whole lot of fairy cakes,

Alex Dekker: 14:34

not just sprinkles, expired sprinkles and nothing else and I could only take them by the palette and I I told them where to put it in short. Yeah. But that is such a universal attitude across all of food relief and a lot of the charity space as well and just they’ll take what they can get. You know, we’re donating it because we’re good people and that makes us good people because we’re donating our our stuff. that we could be throwing it away, but we’re not. But in reality, if that company wanted to do good, and if that company wanted to make a difference, they would donate X percent of their profits to food charities like ours, and like other ones and say, use this to buy fresh vegetables. Yeah, and use this to buy fresh meat. Because what they’re using, you know, what the charity space has turned into a lot of the time is just essentially a glorified first world garbage disposal. Yeah, which is is completely unacceptable. And then the reason we exist is to provide a counterpoint to that and go, sure it costs us 15 cents more per meal than it would if we took rescue produce at the moment is hitting us around 15 to 65 cents per meal. It’s like 50 to 65 cents per meal, because of the wonderful deals we get as a charity. And sure it cost we could cut that down by, you know, 15 to 20 cents per serve. But the quality we would have to step down from and the level of service and the level of respect, we would have to step away from to do that. And then to save that money is completely unacceptable.

Andrea Putting: 16:10

I really like that it’s it’s your values, and your sense of the importance of the worth of these individuals that are dictating what it is you’re doing your business and allowing you to work at a level that you feel is respectful of the individual.

Alex Dekker: 16:33

And that’s what’s gonna lead it right. We can’t lead it on some vanity KPI metrics. We can’t say, oh, we want to hit 15 cents per meal, and we want to do 25,000 meals a week. Yeah, we’d love that. But we’re more than just meals, there’s there’s more in what we do, then the meals we put out, it’s not Yeah, in short, not all meals are created equal. And so to really understand where that comes into play, you’ve got to imagine the entire process of the meal, you know, being made to the meal being. And so we make the meals, we handle all of that we have qualified chefs in the kitchen. We have qualified recipes leading incredibly experienced teams evolve. Yeah, we, we have those chefs making recipes, they lead incredible teams of volunteers to make incredible high quality food. And what what happens in the kitchen is something that we encourage in when we over cook each day as we try to because overcooked is way better than an under cook. As you can imagine. The excess is taken home by the volunteers. And we do that so that we can guarantee that the level of food we put out is of a level that’s acceptable the way they would feed it to their family, because that’s what often happens when we make too much of a chicken fried rice, the volunteers will take home the excess and feed it to their kids that night.

Andrea Putting: 17:56

Because they know that it’s good quality food, good quality.

Alex Dekker: 17:59

And if they ever stopped doing that, we have to reassess how we make healthcare. Right. And then the real important part comes in in the charities pick it up and we never see the food again. Because that is not what our specialty is we don’t actually do the end of the line charity as the charities now don’t do the cooking. Because what used to happen in the industry and still happens throughout most of it is people would start to study sociology, social work, incredible, incredibly tough fields, incredibly like high skill fields and incredibly important fields to become caseworkers who would be able to take someone in a position of domestic violence of drug addiction, have incredible poverty. And move them slowly and work with them to be able to you know, get them their own house, get them their own support programs, get them into therapy, get them in their own job, and take someone in the lowest part of their life and put them back into into being the part of society and the person they always could be but never had the chance. And now that’s what these people train their whole life for. And what used to happen is all of a sudden that they’d be in a position where they’re like, Oh, and also our clients need to eat. So we have to make the food. And you’d have these people who train in, in for university and TAFE courses for you know, six to 10 years to become aid workers having to all of a sudden learn how to be chefs. And what inevitably happens there is the food going out becomes awful, rescued. Food poisoning meals.

Andrea Putting: 19:37

Yeah, that is throw anything together and because anything is better than nothing.

Alex Dekker: 19:43

Yeah, and it’s all they could get access to. They didn’t have the skills, ingredients or capability or time to be able to manage a kitchen. Because if any of your listeners have worked in hospitality before they will know it’s an really tough gig. It takes a lot have prior skills to be able to succeed in hospitality. And so what we’re doing by cooking these meals is we are saving them that time, we’re saying, Hey, we’re going to make sure you get the same quality, high quality meals every week, week in week out, and you don’t have to cook. And that saves the social worker, that amount of time, it saves however much time they’d have to spend cooking the meals, which is a lot. And redirect that back into doing the direct outreach and aid. And it allows them to say they put in, you know, 30 hours a week into eight and 10 hours into cooking. Now, listen, that’s 40 hours a week, they can put straight into giving aid. So that’s saving them the time and it’s increasing their offer to these people, at the end of the day, because they’re now able to give them a higher quality of food and a more reliable food source, then you’ve also got to realize the role that food plays and why they have to make that fruit in that it’s so much easier to open a door if you if you’re knocking on a crisis accommodation plan. If you’re knocking on their door with a week’s worth of food in your hand and say, Hey, I’m here to drop off some food. Can we also have a chat while I’m here, instead of just banging on their door and saying I’m here to ask a few questions, one is going to open the door and the other is going to get you ignored. And so being able to offer this higher quality of food is essentially we’re creating, we’re creating a carrot for all of these aid workers that we work with in all of these charities that we work with to start engaging vulnerable individuals in their services and start taking these people who have been battered by society year in year out and start putting them into a system which is actually made to help them instead of put them down again. And that’s why I’ll be honest, is so important at the moment why they’re going to continue being long into the future.

Andrea Putting: 21:50

Yeah. And that’s an important factor is that you’re allowing those social workers, those charities to focus on what they’re good at, you’re doing what you’re good at. And when we all do what we’re good at, and put them all together, collaborate together. That’s when everything when everyone prospers, it’s when mate. And I’ve talked about prosper as in not necessarily financially, but in our life in our, the way we feel about ourselves, the way we interact with the world. It’s so important that we can work together to make these things happen.

Alex Dekker: 22:28

Well, how does that it’s the maturing of the industry, right? Like, at the at the very beginning of any one industry, you’ll have one group who has an idea and pushes forward. And in that case, that’s the first the legacy charities, the ones that have existed forever and will exist forever sellers. Yeah. But then as they grow, they realized, hey, we, we can probably tie out someone to do this part of the chart, and they’ll, you know, hire an accounting firm, so they don’t have to manage their books anymore. And then they’ll hire out a fundraising firm so they don’t have to fundraise anymore, and they can focus on just doing good. And what we do is is a logical step to that and that we can we now make the food so they can focus on helping the people. Yeah, so it’s I dropped before. And it is something that we take to heart that were less so a charity that helps people and we’re more a piece of infrastructure that props up the charity space. For the charities we help. We are one of the many legs in which their entire service stance. Yes. And that’s yeah, that’s something we take to heart not the responsibility we’re capable of wearing lightly. Right, we knowing that so many charities and so many programs depend on our meals coming out week in week out and doing the same amount of good week in week out. It puts a fire in us to keep moving forward. And then when I started, Alex makes meals with my wonderful co founder Neeraj who’s overlooked because he didn’t have the ego to name a company. We never intended for it to become what it is today, right, we thought it would be a quick response to coke. And now we are in a position where the 50 or so charities underneath our belt all rely on us. And we did a survey recently and about 80 85% of those charities have programs that would not exist that did not exist without outcomes. And so we see them we see the three and a half 1000 meals of that three point something meals a week goes towards programs that wouldn’t exist and aid programs that wouldn’t exist without us and what the entire incredible team here does. And we go oh we we’ve got to keep this going. And we see that 30,000 The all week waitlist and we go oh damn, we don’t have a choice but to grow it and to help more and more people because any other option lets that many people down a week and it takes away such a vital part of the industry?

Andrea Putting: 25:08

And how does that make you feel personally?

Alex Dekker: 25:11

It’s weird man. I’m 22 years old now, I think I was studying a degree in nuclear chemistry at Monash University, I fully intended to get a PhD in it at the end of the road, and then go down to the professor life and never really leave university because it was nice and comfortable. And then this behemoth startup, there’s a COVID started and it changed my life. And now I’m in the charity space, ostensibly for good. But there’s a purpose here that I never could have imagined. There is a drive and a knowledge that what you’re doing is for the greater good. Every morning, I wake up, and I know that whatever I do that day, helps improve people’s lives, man, and even if that is as simple as approving payments on the account to go out, or as simple as attending, attending a meeting with the board or sending off an email, or doing a podcast, I know that at the end of the day, all of that adds up into the giant picture that is Alex makes me also in the giant picture that is the charity space. And it is it’s incredibly humbling, in short, to be able to go, oh, it’s I live my life for something bigger now. It’s no longer Hey, I like chemistry, I’m gonna keep doing it. It’s, oh, I like helping people. And I’m going to keep helping people for as long as I can. And that’s, it’s an incredible feeling to wake up and know that the job you’re doing is going to do good for other people at the end of the day is and credible sense of drive.

Andrea Putting: 27:06

Yeah. And it comes down to what I talked about frequently about something I can’t not do.

Alex Dekker: 27:14

No, 100%. Yeah, no matter what choice anymore,

Andrea Putting: 27:17

right? Yeah, you gotta get up every morning and keep going. Because it’s pulling at you so strong, that this is what you’re here for you? No, no, this is what you need to be doing.

Alex Dekker: 27:28

100% 100%. And over the years, we’ve taken on more and more people. And currently, actually, we’ve taken on a new CEO called Greg, Greg is amazing. He’s had years of experience in the industry. And giving up my chair as that CEO. For the kind of person who names a company like this after himself would seem like a contradiction. It’s how can you have that ego and be able to step back, like that. So you can, you know, just do stuff like this and, and do admin tasks without actually having direct control of every facet of the company. And that’s because I didn’t have a choice. In short, I am 22 years old, did not have the experience to run an organization of this size. And I identified that that’s why I brought on a board and why eventually brought on Greg to be the new CEO, because it’s so much bigger than me. And it’s so much bigger than my co founder Neeraj. It’s so much bigger than any one person in the organization. And there is no choice but to make the best choice for what we do. And the best choice for the people we help. And so no matter what that means. We have to keep pushing and pushing and pushing at all costs. And that means we are we doing incredible things. But we are doing it as a big team. It’s not just me waking up and not just in relation to waking up and going oh, yeah, let’s let’s push harder. It’s about 150 people a week at the moment is the people we have as regular volunteers. Well, it’s make sense. And we wake up and we go, all of those people collectively make a choice to help people that day. Yeah. And that’s, that’s the most incredible thing to me, not necessarily even the drive I get. It’s the fact that so many people wake up and choose to help.

Andrea Putting: 29:25

And that is a powerful thing, I’m sure in their individual lives separately feel a lot like you about it, that it’s something that they they can do to make a difference in the world.

Alex Dekker: 29:38

And that is it’s a blessing, right? Yes. To be able to connect, be connected to that kind of energy. Let alone be as as connected as I am. That kind of energy. It’s something I never would have expected and it’s something I never could have seen coming but I have no regrets whatsoever. Because the work we do is amazing.

Andrea Putting: 30:02

Yes, it is. Thank you for that. Thank you for doing that. That’s amazing. It really does make a difference, I’m sure, in a big way. And I just love it that you’re making people feel like they’re worth their worthwhile in life when they’re on the lowest point in their life by giving them a quality meal. So if someone wants wants to find out more about Alex makes meals, how can they find out?

Alex Dekker: 30:29

Yep, so we’re available on on every platform under the sun except Tik Tok, I still haven’t figured that one out. If you just Google Alex makes meals will be there. We have a website, Alex mills.com. You can find us on Facebook, on Instagram on Twitter. If you want to donate 50 cents will turn into a meal at the end of the day. So if you want to turn into a regular donation, we even $15 a month is able to do one meal a day every day. For time and mortem. 30 bucks a month, two meals a day. 45 bucks a month you are making one person be fed except outside of you that one person at their most need is fed every day three meals a day. And so if you want to help out, just reach out, we we need help in every area. As I said we have a massive way to grow. We have so many people who would need help that we can’t currently help because we don’t have the resources to do it. So if you want to help out, reach out, we’ll find a place for you.

Andrea Putting: 31:29

So thank you so much Alex for coming along and and telling us all about Alex makes meals I think it’s an amazing thing that you’re doing and and I know that you’ve also been Victorian, young Victorian of the year. So that’s pretty awesome. So that means that your Yeah, well people are recognizing the important importance of what you’re doing. So yeah, really appreciate it.

Alex Dekker: 32:00

Appreciate that. Thank you very much for having me on.

Andrea Putting: 32:02

Thank you. And that’s all we have time for today on social media revolution back next time with another social mission revolutionist. Discover how you can become a social mission revolutionist in your business by reading Andrea’s latest book, compassionate prosperity, when success is not enough. Grab your copy now at www.socialmissionrevolution.com or from your favorite online bookseller.