The growth and influence of the food movement are undeniable. Take, for example, the proliferation of farmers’ markets and community supported agriculture, or the 4,500 events that took place across all 50 states on this year’s Food Day. These are just some of the testaments to the power of everyday eaters expressing their food beliefs. The list of qualifiers we now eagerly attach to our meals has exploded—we want food that’s local, organic, sustainable, fair trade, healthy, vegan, macrobiotic. Yet, with all of the craze around food and its various product labels, something seems amiss.

When was the last time you sat down to a meal and thought about the people behind your food? And I’m not just talking about farmers and fisherfolks, of which there are too few (a special shout-out to SAAFON and Food Sovereignty Prize winners). I’m talking about people like Nakima, a server and single mother of three who is living off tips and struggles to find childcare. Nakima is one of the oft-invisibilized 20 million people who work in our modern day food value chain, doing anything from picking conventional tomatoes to serving you dinner at that locavore spot you love.  Half of these people—10 million of them—are the chefs, cooks, dishwashers, hosts, barbacks, bartenders, runners, servers, porters, and general managers who form the backbone of the restaurant industry. That’s nearly one in 12 people in the entire U.S. workforce.

So how have we, as a collective food movement, overlooked the restaurant industry as a potential site of change? Up until the Fast Food Forward worker strikes, which began late last year and gained national attention this summer, and Saru Jayaraman’s whirlwind national tour to promote her book Behind the Kitchen Door, many of us–including myself–did not have the restaurant industry, let alone its employment practices, on our radars. This is true even though the average adult in the US eats out four to five times a week and millions of us have worked in the industry ourselves.

In reality, yet unbeknownst to many, the restaurant industry is a major component of the food system. It boasts 980,000 restaurants and pulls in over $660 billion a year, accounting for four percent of the US GDP.  It is the fastest growing industry in the private sector and the only one that continued to grow during the recession years. Moreover, as a nation, we spend 47 percent of our food budget—approximately $1,150 per person annually—dining out.

Given that the restaurant industry captures nearly half of our food dollars and provides half of all food chain value jobs, a deepened understanding of what’s really going on behind the kitchen door and on the dining room floor is critical for the food movement and its evolution.

The Welcome Table, a new project of ROC United, the only national nonprofit dedicated to transforming the restaurant industry, seeks to jumpstart that evolution. The Welcome Table is a national network of ethical eaters who are gathering for a more responsible food system, starting with the restaurant industry.

We organize fun social events like EatUps at “High Road” restaurants that treat their workers well, offer resources to help consumers find responsible restaurants, and run campaigns in support of better wages and working conditions for restaurant workers.