How a Penn State student is giving back and fighting world hunger with meal prep service

When Nick Cradler witnessed his friends prepping some lackluster meals over the Penn State winter break, he decided to do something about it.

“I just noticed they were eating the same things every day, like chicken and rice,” he said. “One of my roommates would make a batch of pasta for the entire week. ... I decided I’d sell some food to help people like them out, but I decided I didn’t want to make money off of them.”

With four years in the restaurant industry, cooking at eateries along the Delaware beaches and on the Jersey Shore, Cradler channeled his experience and love for cooking into a new initiative christened One for One Cooking. Every week, he offers pick-up meals at an affordable price and then donates all of the proceeds to ShareTheMeal, a United Nations World Food Programme initiative that provides food assistance around the globe.

“I found an organization where you could donate one day of food to fight world hunger with one donation, so (the plan) was going to be one meal sold, one meal donated,” Cradler said.

But after seeing the popularity of his products, he decided to donate all of the money from the project.

Each week, either Tuesday or Wednesday, Cradler takes to One for One Cooking’s Instagram page to reveal the week’s menu. From there, he takes orders and payments via Venmo. Past meals have included carne asada tacos with grilled marinated steak, pineapple salsa and avocado creme, and crab cake sandwiches with fries.

The economics student and graduating senior initially set a goal of selling 100 meals over the spring semester, but he quickly sold nearly that in his first four weeks of operation, allowing him to donate more than 200 days of food. His economics background has assisted him in cutting costs and managing the project, and he’s found many creative ways to stay thrifty, including teaching himself Photoshop so that he could make all of One for One Cooking’s social media content on his own.

Making every ingredient himself is “a little tedious,” but it’s the cheapest way to go about the meals, he said.

“It’s a lot of making stuff as efficiently as possible,” he said. “I learn new stuff each week. There are 20 or 30 people coming in within an hour or hour and a half, and I have to make everything fresh. ... (My economics degree) definitely helps out.”

Cradler designs the weekly meals based off his restaurant experience, as well as his personal experience cooking for his three sisters at home. He’s considering offering vegetarian, gluten-free and lactose-free meal options in the future, as well as combo options, as all have been requested by his growing customer base.

What’s the plan once Cradler graduates in the spring? For now, he’s not entirely sure.

“I’d always wanted to do a restaurant-type (business), but I’m doing a career in finance, so I realized I wouldn’t be able to do this again until I was maybe in my 50s or so,” he said. “It’s just here now and I might do it wherever I work next year. For now, I’ll grow it until I graduate and then I’m not sure after that.”

To learn more about One for One Cooking and to place an order, visit www.instagram.com/oneforonecooking/. Meal pick-ups occur between 5 and 7 p.m. on Tuesdays or Wednesdays of each week, at 249 East Nittany Ave. in downtown State College. Cradler requests that only one person per household attend the weekly pick-ups and for all customers to wear their masks.

“I think (One for One Cooking) really gives me the opportunity to give back to people I care about and the community around me, while also helping other people out. I chose the organization I did because I can make the biggest impact with the margins I know I can achieve,” Cradler said. “I really enjoy it. It makes other people happy and it makes me happy.”