History

Jean-François Archambault has always taken food and people's happiness to heart. In 2002, speaking in front of leaders from the culinary, food and hotel sectors, Jean-François presented his bold idea to recover surplus food from hotels and caterers in order to feed people in situations of food insecurity. 

2012
Youth Centres
Les Ateliers du Frère Toc (culinary workshops) are offered in Québec's Youth Centres - 19,200 hours of training were given to 400 young people.
2013
Food Recovery
La Tablée des Chefs offers its sustainable food recovery program in 47 establishments in Canada, allowing the recovery of 246,172 portions of food. Since 2013, we have been collecting food surpluses in Vancouver and Calgary, as well as in Mexico and France!
2014
E-learning platform
The culinary training programs benefit from a new web platform. The chefs and schools participating in the various programs can go to the e-Learning platform to find all the educational material and educational video capsules necessary to support the transmission of knowledge.
2015
Prizes
La Tablée des Chefs is the recipient of several inspiring prizes: Dux, for Les Brigades culinaires; the Prime Minister's Regional Volunteer Award - "Social Innovator"; The Mercuriades, in the category "Commitment to the community"; Bénévotemps Conscientia, Award of Excellence in "Environmental Innovation and Sustainable Development", for our food recovery program; the Novae Award in the "Innovation and involvement for sustainable development" category and the MPI Montréal Award.
2016
Grande Tablée
The two evenings of La Grande Tablée, which took place in Montreal and Quebec City, raised $ 380,000 in profits. This is a record since the launch of our fund-raiser events!
2017
Spaghetti dinner
The fundraiser Spaghetti Dinner - the first edition of this benefit event - invites Quebecers to hold their own fundraising event to support the Kitchen Brigades training program.
2018
Quebec government announcement
In May, the Quebec government announced $ 5 million in financial assistance to La Tablée des Chefs over five years. The assistance provided will make it possible to better target food surpluses to people in need and to introduce more young people to cooking and healthy eating.
2019
A year of innovations
For the first time, La Grande Tablée is also held in Toronto. The new La Tablée des Chefs website is launched. The organization opens its new cooking school in Le Grand Marché de Québec. For the first time, La Tablée des Chefs is featured on Tout le monde en parle, where Jean-François Archambault is interviewed.
2020
Solidarity Kitchens
At the very start of the pandemic, La Tablée des Chefs set up the Solidarity Kitchens in just a few weeks. The initiative became the largest food production ever seen in Canada. In less than a year, the organization produced over 2 million meals, distributed across the country via the food bank network.
2021
Lots of Brigades
Approximately, 200 high schools in Quebec and 25 outside Quebec take part in the Culinary Brigades after-school program. Nearly 20 places offer the Cook Up Your Future program to DYP youth.
2022
Big recovery
For the first time, a squad from La Tablée des Chefs is on site at the Montreal F1 Grand Prix to recover all surplus food from the elite boxes, employee kitchens, team kitchens, caterers and others. An incredible 15 tonnes are recovered and distributed to people in need.
2023
Deserved honor
La Tablée des Chefs founder and general manager Jean-François Archambault is knighted by the Ordre national du Québec. This is the most prestigious recognition awarded by the Quebec government. Jean-François shares this honor with his wife and right-hand woman, Geneviève Lafitte, his 5 children and all the members of the La Tablée des Chefs team.