Daily Inspiration: Meet Isaiah Ruffin

Today we’d like to introduce you to Isaiah Ruffin. 

Hi Isaiah, so excited to have you on the platform. So, before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
When I was 10, I would write menus for fun and share them with my mother for the restaurant that lived in my head. She still has them. After then my curiosity for food only grew. My first great food memory was while living in Turkey (my mother was in the Air Force), I had goat cheese on pizza. My second great food memory was visiting the elementary school of the Turkish kids. The learners in this school received shaved roasted leg of lamb over jasmine rice and fruit for lunch. It is still one of the best things I have ever tasted in my life. After high school, I joined the military and served in the US Army for 13 years. In that time, I had over six combat deployments and jumped out of over 100 perfectly working aircraft. Halfway through my tenure, I was presented with the option to go to culinary school paid for by the military. Since then, I have never looked back. While in the military I have cooked for high-ranking officials to participating in programs like Chefs Move to Schools. Since leaving the service I have traveled a great deal. I started in Denver, then D.C. (where I’m from), to Denmark, and even Iceland with many stops in between. Also, during that last spurt of traveling, I completed a master’s degree in sustainable food systems. This degree has really fine-tuned how I operate as a chef. I now ensure every meal I cook today supports a better future for people and the planet. After returning to northern Colorado, I had a vision for feeding people, making money, and supporting a cause near and dear to my heart. And thus, Project Pizza was born. I found an old 1991 school bus on Craigslist, that was a party bus, and put a wood-fired pizza oven inside. Now I and my team travel from Denver to even Wyoming cranking out wood-fired pizza. Every dollar we make goes to a fund for grants for schools learning gardens. We only source ingredients from the US and we offer full benefits to all employees. This is just the beginning. We will be expanding into a second mobile vendor operation making boozy ice cream this summer. 

I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle-free, but so far would you say the journey has been a fairly smooth road?
It has not been as smooth as I hoped. Some of the biggest struggles recently are navigating the many licenses and permits needed to operate a food truck in Colorado. Also, the social and economic norms of the US can also be challenging. For example, we do not take tips on my food truck. We start pay at 25 an hour and do not feel it is the responsibility of the customer to give extra to supplement our compensation. Though we have received a lot of positive feedback, there are some who can get quite rude and disrespectful about our policy to the point of challenging my team on whether they are getting paid enough. 

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I have some experience in schools and my passion of mine is child food literacy. The Washington Post even did an article about the work we were doing in the school district. One of my crowning achievements was writing a children’s book. The book is called “Up With a Scoop.” It is a book that goes through a simplified illustration food system starting and ending on a farm. It also rhymes. 

Is there anyone you’d like to thank or give credit to?
My mother is my number one cheerleader and supporter in my professional career. My mother even financially invested in the dream come to life Project Pizza. I have a small friend group who has always been an ear for ideas. Though I make the pizzas, I couldn’t do it without the farmers. Our grand opening for Project Pizza was a farm in Fort Collins called Native Hill. If it weren’t for Nic and Katie, we would have not made it. We entered the season late and they opened their farm to us and for that, I am eternally grateful. My business partner Colleen. When Project Pizza started, she helped voluntarily. Starting expenses can be hard on a new business. She put in sweat equity to help get the truck off the ground. When I first got the bus, she spent 16 hours scraping stickers off of the bus and asked for nothing in return. Now she is my business partner and I couldn’t see Project Pizza without her. 

Contact Info:

• Email: info@projectpizzaco.org
• Website: www.projectpizzaco.org
• Instagram: projectpizzaco
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/projectpizzaco/