Corby Kummer: Business as Usual? Not for the Restaurant Industry

Award-winning food writer Corby Kummer joined Boston Public Radio on Wednesday to share his thoughts on the movement within the restaurant industry to raise wages and foster better working environments in order to recruit workers.

“There's a worker shortage. But more than that, there's a wage shortage,” Kummer said. “If you offer people more money, they will apply for jobs.”

That’s no easy feat for restaurant owners, Kummer noted.

“Pay people more, give them paid time off, try to give them health insurance, all the stuff that's very expensive,” Kummer said. “Very expensive means you have to have a better business plan. That sounds easy, but it actually has been a huge challenge for restaurant owners before and after the pandemic.”

Kummer is the executive director of the Food and Society policy program at the Aspen Institute, a senior editor at The Atlantic and a senior lecturer at the Tufts Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy.