Scotiabank Arena becomes kitchen preparing 10,000 meals daily for frontline workers

The arena that normally hosts the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Toronto Raptors is planning to prepare 10,000 meals a day to give to frontline health care workers in the city and also to bring food to communities in need.

The meals are provided by MLSE (Maple Leafs Sports and Entertainment) alongside other partners.

Initially they were making 2,800 meals a day but the number quickly grew as time went on. "We're learning as we go," said Dan Morrow, MLSE's vice-president of food and beverage. "We learned that cooking 5,000 pounds of pasta takes a long time."

The program is scheduled to run five days a week and will be operated by MLSE until June. The plan is to prepare and deliver 500,000 meals.

"It will be meaningful," said MLSE president and CEO Michael Friisdahl. He said the project could help during this uncertain times.

MLSE was able to provide 17,000 litres of chili and have cooking pots capable of making 120 litres of rice at a time. Earlier this week, they made 100 litres of jerk marinade and 1,700 pounds of chicken legs.

There are almost 20 chefs working on the project and another 50 people helping. In the coming weeks, they will likely move up to 90 workers and will attempt to hit 50,000 meals a week.

Of those 90 workers, one third will be chefs, which will enable them to shift into high gear with 50,000 meals a week.

Chris Zielinkski is MLSE's culinary director and has lots of experience feeding people, whether is a slice of pizza or an expensive seafood dish. Zielinksi normally would have a much bigger crew to work with but social distancing has impeded the ability to have a large staff.

"One thing out here, you're going to find a lot of people are very passionate about their work," said Zielinski. "They're passionate about this cause."

"This crew has just been unreal at working through all the challenges, figuring how to make the process seamless and safe," he said. The size of the arena makes social distancing a little easier.

Generally, the kitchen would have around 40 staff members working but that number has been restricted down to eight. "Normally we just pile in here and everybody's working shoulder to shoulder. But that doesn't work any more," said Zielinski.

"We don't really know exactly but I can tell you that we've had put a lot of conversation into how we will manage this once we do get back to business, because obviously it's going to be a different set of circumstances. We don't even know the answer to that yet but we're going to be ready for whichever version comes."

The chefs remain in the kitchen and wait for others to pick up the food and bring it out to the arena floor where it will be assembled and packaged.

"It's labour-intensive. Peeling, cutting and roasting 40 50-pound bags of carrots takes time," Zielinski said.

The arena is blaring music to keep the morale high however most of the arena's lights remain off.

Staff who assemble the meals are wearing masks and both gloves and hand sanitizer are always in reach. The arena doors that can remain open are propped to limit the need for people to touch surfaces.

Once prepared, the meals are delivered to hospitals during their shift change and given to frontline workers on their way home. Each meal is enough for a family of four.