Opportunity doesn’t always knock on everyone’s door, but Caravan Food Group is changing that by tapping a community often overlooked in the foodservice industry: persons with disabilities, or PWDs. Francis Reyes, the 26-year-old CEO of Caravan Food Group, says that PWDs can be as capable as any other worker “as long as you design a system where they can perform their jobs.” At Elait, Caravan Food Group’s artisanal rolled ice cream establishment, the deaf employees are equipped with writing tablets, while the stalls are designed with infographics to facilitate easy communication between customers and crew.
“I wanted to create a concept that simply by existing, it’s helping other people out,” says Reyes. When the job market for PWDs is limited, a company willing to listen to their silent struggle is bound to ensure brand loyalty and vice versa, because while “you’re not really changing the world, you’re changing the world for other people.”
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