Once a best-kept secret, word is getting out that Scarborough is home to a unique, international and burgeoning food scene. With over 370 independent culinary businesses locally representing all flavours of the globe, Scarborough-area diners have a remarkable amount of choice at their fingertips.
Of course, pandemic restrictions have been especially hard on local mom-and-pop joints. Some are helmed by families with limited-to-no experience in digital marketing, or rely solely on foot traffic and word-of-mouth to grow their clientele. On the cusp of exploding as “the next great food scene” in the GTA, many of Scarborough’s foodie gems face enormous challenges to survive.
Helping those businesses not just survive but thrive is something UTSC students have taken on with an appetite. With savvy student-led businesses such as PickEasy cropping up, as well as an abundance of community partnerships, some of UTSC’s most passionate entrepreneurs, designers and marketers hope to usher local joints into a bold new era.
Here, read about three new UTSC projects poised to revolutionize the Scarborough dining scene – and give back to our community.
Matching restauranteurs with skilled labour: Matchii
Inspired by their love of internationally-diverse cuisine, an intrepid crew of four – Dylan Koordi, Mariana Marquez, Hoang Nguyen and Sebastian Rosas – were inspired to develop a unique recruitment app, Matchii.
Matchii is a selection platform for restauranteurs looking to hire and retain the best staff for their operations. Here’s how it works: Culinary industry job seekers – from chefs to servers – fill out a free questionnaire featuring both work experience and personality questions. Their responses are filtered through a specially-designed algorithm, which will then match candidates with employers who have signed up to the subscription service, saving both time and money in the recruitment process, and, by extension, help the restaurants grow.
“Recruitment is such an important part of restaurant success,” says Rosas, and given the effects of the pandemic, “There’s even less margin for error than before. [Restaurants] cannot afford to make mistakes.”
One interesting feature the team is working into their app is the elimination of bias in the hiring process. They are stripping from the process identifiers such as gender identification that could lead to discriminatory hiring practices, while retaining important characteristics or skills – for instance, if a second language is required. With the app hitting the “fine-tuning” stage, the now 12-strong Matchii team hopes to launch their product in the fall, with a target of signing on a minimum of two hospitality school classes and 50 restaurants.
The team has also developed a companion podcast – “The Matchii Experience” – available on Spotify and YouTube, where they explore different facets of the food industry in conversation with food critics, business owners, workers – and even Team Canada’s coach for the World Culinary Olympics.
The team received support and mentorship from both of UTSC’s campus incubators, the Hub and The BRIDGE. Says Rosas, “They are both great places that provide different type of feedback and resources.”
Get more information about Matchii at: support@matchii.io
“I got to work on something that makes me really proud.” – Jennifer Deng
Find Dining (and stories) in Scarborough
A collaboration between the City of Toronto, Centennial College and UTSC’s The BRIDGE is putting independent Scarborough eateries front and centre. Sponsored by the City of Toronto and supported by alumnus Councilor Jennifer McKelvie, Find Dining is a guide to local independent eateries in Scarborough, highlighting menus, costs and specials. At the same time, it’s a celebration of the unique people and stories behind these often-hidden culinary gems.
The project has been a great way to give Scarborough eateries a strong digital presence during the pandemic, says Dave Fenton, Industry Partnerships, Innovation, and Work-Integrated Learning Lead at The BRIDGE, a multi-purpose academic space at UTSC spanning teaching, study, research, and experiential learning for business, finance, and entrepreneurship.
Launched this June, Find Dining required intensive research and outreach to locate and contact the 372 independent restaurants in Scarborough. The online platform gives local eateries an opportunity to construct and control an online presence. UTSC’s involvement has extended beyond the building of the platform; the team additionally has been offering support to restauranteurs, including helping with the development of their personal stories for their business profile. The site creates a digital storefront for local-area restaurants that gives them the space and means to create blogs, post daily specials and, most importantly, reach a wide, food-curious audience.
“We’re also hosting a number of sessions aimed at capacity building for the restaurants,” says Fenton. The project team has hosted three sessions thus far, and resources for the businesses are hosted on the site, such as free tax workshops and tax tool kits, support for CERB applications and more.
UTSC spring 2021 grad Jennifer Deng, who worked on building the website and provided graphic design support for the project, says that the students involved were passionate about the work, and motivated by a powerful sense of community.
“I got to work on something that makes me really proud,” says Deng, who has found several restaurants on the site that she’s looking forward to visiting – and, inspired by her work on the project, recently launched an Instagram channel devoted to culinary experiences.
Find local restaurants on finddining.ca. Interested in learning more? Email info@finddining.ca
“I hate the barriers to fresh food.” – Ayesha Noor
Fresh produce for students, local food banks
Supported by UTSC Campus Farm manager Beatrice Lego and the student-led Sustainable Innovation Group, The BRIDGE has embarked on a fresh project aimed at providing healthy, campus-grown food choices for students while also supporting a Scarborough-area food bank.
For the initial roll-out of the project, The BRIDGE was allotted six of the Campus Farm’s raised beds to grow vegetables. Seeds were planted this summer, with an initial crop expected this fall. Some of that produce is expected to be sold as salad kits through the UTSC Farmer’s Market and the Sustainable Innovation Group, with recipes developed in conjunction with UTSC’s Culinaria faculty. The kits are perfect for students looking for fresh food choices, or students living alone who may find it difficult to buy fresh produce without creating a lot of waste. At the same time, the project generates produce that is donated directly to the local-area non-profit, the Scarborough Centre for Healthy Communities,
“I hate the barriers to fresh food,” says Ayesha Noor, June 2021 UTSC grad who developed the blue print for the project. Noor notes that most donations to food banks are non-perishable items – which are of course important. But clients who rely on food banks often don’t have enough access to fresh and nutritious produce, which is expensive – and those costs are only going up. “People going into food banks deserve what is relevant to them and what they desire,” says Noor.
From the project’s inception, Noor knew that the initiative needed to be responsive to the needs of the community – and sustainable. “We want our endeavors to be self-reliant. We don’t want to have to rely on grants,” says Noor, who notes that achieving self-sustainability is a long-term goal.
For Noor, tackling food insecurity at the community level, and being responsive to the community’s needs, can be transformative for Scarborough -- but also reflective of this vibrant community. “We have a shared feeling that we are in this together. We help each other. We work together. We are a community,” she says.
Photo: The BRIDGE Campus Farm project, summer 2021 (Ayesha Noor, The BRIDGE Campus Farm Project)