Our programs turn The Black Food Project’s mission into concrete initiatives — training, production, culture, and community access working together as one system.

Detroit FoodLOOP — A Partnership in Progress

The Detroit FoodLOOP is not a Black Food Project program. It’s a separate facility project at 9400 Oakland Avenue, led by NECCDC (Northend Christian Community Development Corporation) and Oakland Avenue Urban Farm, being developed as a revenue-sustaining, community-rooted food resilience hub in Detroit’s North End. It connects food production, urban agriculture, culinary training, food entrepreneurship, café and market activity, event revenue, emergency response, food recovery, and cultural foodways into one operating system, built around a simple principle: Local Ownership of Our Operating Production.

The Black Food Project is a proposed kitchen, production, and culinary training partner for this facility — not its owner or operator — and no MOU has been finalized yet. The FoodLOOP is located on the same block as Oakland Avenue Urban Farm, connecting farm production directly to a commercial kitchen, café, market, and event space. [PLACEHOLDER: Partnership terms, compensation, and TBFP’s exact role are still pending a final MOU with NECCDC/Oakland Avenue Urban Farm; site and partnership details subject to change as agreements are formalized.]

The Seven Loops

The word “loop” is the organizing metaphor for the FoodLOOP’s food system model — keeping food, land, labor, training, culture, entrepreneurship, emergency response, and economic value circulating within Detroit communities, through seven connected operating cycles:

• Grow Loop — urban agriculture, farm production, gardens, growers, and land stewardship
• Make Loop — commercial kitchen production, bakery, value-added foods, preservation, and prepared meals
• Learn Loop — culinary training, youth education, food safety, nutrition education, workforce development, and cultural foodways learning
• Sell Loop — café, market, retail, wholesale, food entrepreneur development, and local product sales
• Feed Loop — emergency meals, community meals, pantry support, prepared food access, and distribution
• Recover Loop — food rescue, food waste prevention, compost, soil-building, preservation, and highest-use food recovery
• Culture Loop — storytelling, food-based media, community dinners, ancestral foodways, cultural preservation, and creative expression