Harris Teeter's Chef's Best fundraiser returns for its 35th edition, with eight-time James Beard Award-winning chef Tom Colicchio headlining a night of cuisine, live entertainment, auctions, and raffles in support of Second Harvest Food Bank of Metrolina. The Harris Teeter event is the food bank's largest single-day fundraiser, and this year's edition continues a streak of growing community impact.
The Stakes
The 2025 Chef's Best raised over $621,000 — a benchmark the 2026 event aims to surpass. Every dollar collected goes directly toward Second Harvest Food Bank of Metrolina's operations across 24 counties in North Carolina and South Carolina. In fiscal year 2025–2026, the food bank distributed over 93 million pounds of food, with more than 60% of that annual distribution comprising fresh produce, meat, and dairy — a distribution profile that underscores the growing industry-wide push toward nutritious, perishable food rescue rather than shelf-stable staples alone.
"Food insecurity affects too many families in our region, and events like Chef's Best demonstrate the power of our community coming together to make a difference," said Danna Robinson, director of corporate affairs and customer relations at Harris Teeter. Robinson credited vendor partnerships and community support as central to the fundraiser's sustained success.
Colicchio's Reach
Colicchio brings rare crossover appeal to the event — a profile that matters for drawing both industry insiders and the broader public. As owner of Crafted Hospitality, his restaurant portfolio spans Craft, Craftsteak, Temple Court, Vallata, and Small Batch. He opened the landmark Craft in New York City in 2001 and has since built one of the more recognizable brands in fine-casual dining. Beyond the kitchen, Colicchio serves as head judge and executive producer of Bravo's Emmy Award-winning Top Chef, and executive produced A Place at the Table, a documentary examining food insecurity in America. His advocacy work alongside policymakers adds policy-level credibility to a fundraiser that is already anchored in operational food-relief infrastructure.
For grocery retailers and foodservice operators watching closely, Chef's Best represents a replicable model: a vendor-supported, celebrity-chef-anchored event that channels hospitality industry relationships into measurable hunger-relief outcomes. Harris Teeter, a wholly-owned subsidiary of The Kroger Co., operates more than 250 stores across eight states and Washington, D.C., giving the retailer both the vendor network and the community footprint to sustain an event of this scale year after year.
Operators interested in how grocery and foodservice brands are building community-impact programming can follow restaurant industry fundraising and community coverage and food retail and grocery trends for broader context on how the sector is responding to food insecurity at scale.
Tickets and event details are available at chefsbestcharlotte.org.
Written by Michael Politz, Author of Guide to Restaurant Success: The Proven Process for Starting Any Restaurant Business From Scratch to Success (ISBN: 978-1-119-66896-1), Founder of Food & Beverage Magazine, the leading online magazine and resource in the industry. Designer of the Bluetooth logo and recognized in Entrepreneur Magazine's "Top 40 Under 40" for founding American Wholesale Floral, Politz is also the Co-founder of the Proof Awards and the CPG Awards and a partner in numerous consumer brands across the food and beverage sector.
