How can you help the community through eating food? Brandon Kang, a local Ann Arbor resident and University of Michigan student, is doing exactly that. Brandon Kang is a first-year student at the university, aspiring to pursue a career within business, more specifically, a career within finance. Through this, he plans to incorporate his passions of community service and social impact within his educational knowledge. Originally from Bergen County, NJ, this is where his passion for helping others came from. Being immersed in a variety of different cultures, due to being just outside a large city, through food, as well as his community, promoting diversity has always been a forefront, and natural, value of his. With this variety of interests, how does Brandon find a balance between them?: Through his food Instagram account, @bkangeats, serving as an up-and-coming creator within Ann Arbor. This Instagram account geared towards highlighting the various local restaurants he visits, he is able to incorporate his passions of digital media design and food with business and assisting his community.
As Brandon said, “This food account serves as a platform for me to document my community, along with my love for trying new foods and cuisines.”
Life Before Ann Arbor
Prior to coming to Ann Arbor, Brandon was extremely involved within his community and led many initiatives to support helping improve it, as well. Asking Brandon what community service opportunities he was a part of while in high school, he first outlined the club he co-founded: Leo club.
“Leo club was basically made to support local communities in need. One thing that we did was gather volunteers around the community to package and deliver food supplies to low-income families in Patterson, NJ. We also partnered with a local church to raise funds and distribute a couple hundred Christmas gifts for children in underserved communities,” Brandon says.
Furthermore, Brandon was also a part of an organization called Zimele. Zimele is an organization dedicated towards addressing the roots of poverty in South Africa. Brandon’s involvement within this organization demonstrates that not only does he love giving back to the various communities he is a part of, but he is dedicated to giving back to other communities across the globe. Being a part of Zimele, Brandon participated in a trip to South Africa to help provide underserved orphans and single mothers with basic resources such as food, water, and money raised through Zimele fundraisers.
Brandon says, “I also taught basic computer skills, financial literacy, and entrepreneurship to Zimele’s clients, Zulu people, to help them become successful entrepreneurs, selling handmade clothes, pottery, bowls, and baskets.”
This organization is where his love for digital media creation and videography blossomed, as he created, edited, and launched videos to highlight the Zulu people and their culture. It is clear that Brandon is remarkable in the fact that he truly tries to not only expose himself to other cultures, but to also understand and highlight other cultures and backgrounds.
The Birth of His Food Instagram Account
Brandon is not just preaching this philosophy on community and diversity, but clearly demonstrating it in action. Brandon’s Instagram food account does just that, in which he combines the two aspects of his local community with exposure to cultures. Started in May 2022, not even a year ago, he has grown to gain 237 followers. However, his reach expands far beyond this.
“Here I go around, try new food, and highlight the unique aspects of these local restaurants that many people don’t see from a simple google search. A lot of people have actually reached out to me, saying they reference my page. It is a good way to support local restaurants in Ann Arbor,” says Brandon.
Although his effects of his food account may go unnoticed, Brandon Kang truly displays the characteristics of an exceptional community member. Within the five months that Brandon has lived in Ann Arbor, he has documented over 30 local Ann Arbor restaurant reviews on his Instagram account. Furthermore, he has incorporated 10 different cuisines into his posts: Korean, American, Indian, Italian, Greek, Chinese, Thai, Mediterranean, Japanese, and Mexican.
Brandon says, “I am still trying to find my foothold within Ann Arbor, and I am constantly working, each and every day, to become more and more involved within this new community of mine. Just as I did back in my hometown in New Jersey, I hope to collaborate with a great deal of new restaurants, specifically those that are family-run or overlooked, and form partnerships with them that will attract customers and benefit them in the long-run.”
In the past, and in Ann Arbor, he is currently working on filming, free, promotional videos for these local restaurants. As Brandon said, the mission of this Instagram page is to show the amazing qualities and food that many local restaurants have to offer in Ann Arbor. Ultimately, his goal is to bring more people to these restaurants and in turn this also will hopefully promote culture and diversity within the community. Brandon has managed to put his love for food into promoting a good cause, one that helps build up his new, local community, as well as the people that make Ann Arbor up.
Writing this, it is important to not only display the great qualities of Brandon as a community member, but the businesses and restaurants that he has deemed exceptional. One of his reviews that he rated ten out of ten, was a local favorite, Frita Batidos that serves Cuban inspired street food. Frita Batidos, also shares the same philosophy as Brandon, to give back to the Ann Arbor and Michigan community.
Brandon’s review said: “Alright so first off, I was so excited to try Fritas because of the hype around it. And lemme tell u it lived up to the hype 100%. I got the chicken and beef burger with sunny side up egg and salsa, and this was possibly the best burger I’ve had in my entire life. The meat was so tender, the toppings were perfect complements, and the egg made the burger spectacular. The fries were also very bussin with their secret sauce. Oh and don’t even get me started on the batido. I got passion fruit, and it was the best smoothie/milkshake I’ve ever had. Had a little taste of the monstrous churro (that was only $2.50), and I gotta say it was splendid as well. Overall more than a solid meal and definitely my favorite restaurant in Ann Arbor so far.”
As you can see, Brandon displays these local restaurants in a fun and uplifting way, using informal language that can appeal to students, Ann Arbor community members, and tourists alike. He purposely uses casual language, so it can be easily understandable to people from a variety of backgrounds, with different educational levels and different interests. He wants to connect with his followers, as well as other readers of his posts. Brandon furthered this post to include a video highlighting the food for the local restaurant. This promotional video received 3,745 views across his platforms, and in the past, his videos have reached over thirteen thousand views. To put Brandon and his mission in simple terms, he is a university student that loves to eat and try new foods, but at the same time wants to share this love with other people. As demonstrated, it is clear Brandon is noteworthy in the way he goes about this and how there is meaning behind each project he is a part of.
Instagram Post Examples
Ambassadorships and Partnerships
This love for food has gone beyond just his growing Instagram account. Brandon just acquired an internship, better called an ambassadorship, with a brand called “Atmosfy.” Atmosfy is an app in which you can explore dining and restaurants through videos from customers who recently dined from there. Atmosfy is a relatively new app, however, it has shown extreme success in large, major cities, such as New York or Chicago. Brandon hopes to expand his app to Ann Arbor and display many of Ann Arbor’s gems and restaurants on it. Why does he want to do this if he already has his own personal Instagram account where he can gain attention to his own person and his reviews? This is because his Instagram account is just a platform in which he can elevate his thoughts and feelings surrounding food. His purpose behind his Instagram account is not to gain followers or likes for money or for personal gain, but to share his love for Ann Arbor food and local restaurants with other people. Partnering with the up-and-coming phone app, Atmosfy, he is able to once again continue to develop this passion of his.
Brandon says, “Atmosfy is trying to expose their users, which are customers, to big food restaurants to attract people towards these local restaurants. They are trying to get new users on this app in order to be able to promote more businesses. What I am doing, as a new ambassador of this company, is promoting Ann Arbor. I believe I am currently the only one on this new platform that is promoting small restaurants in Ann Arbor. The app works by sending out these videos to people within the area. What I’m doing is promoting these restaurants, thereby increasing foot traffic to said restaurants.”
Moving Forward
In terms of future community service projects he intends to become involved in within the future, he aspires to address both his Instagram account, @bkangeats, and his Atmosfy platform.
Brandon says, “In terms of bkangeats, I think just collaborating with more businesses and more restaurants.”
He wants to create a more structured business plan for his account to transform it to grow his platform so he will have a greater ability to reach out to more restaurants for collaborations and to create free promotional videos. He aspires to continue to create organic content to market restaurants and to continue to assist, as an individual, to increase small businesses’ revenue.
Furthermore, he goes on to add, “I hope, in the future, as my account grows, to incorporate more philanthropic events and initiatives into my platform, as well. I do have plans to expand this.”
Capitalizing on an informal and welcoming approach to his platforms is also really important to Brandon. As seen through his various guest features, he wants to include more Ann Arbor community members and residents into his platforms. This is because his Instagram and Atmosfy accounts are made for the people of Ann Arbor and his hometown, so additionally he believes that he should incorporate Ann Arbor residents into his accounts also. He envisions himself incorporating more Ann Arbor residents and their opinions through approaching strangers and asking them what their favorite local restaurant or cuisine is. Following this he would pay a visit to that restaurant, post it, and in turn give it a genuine and legitimate rating. As Brandon mentioned before, he truly has a love for food and trying new foods, so he is not afraid of incorporating a bit of adventure and spontaneity into his Instagram.
Brandon builds on this idea by saying, “I think food and showing off a bunch of different cuisines is one way to show people new cultures and encourage them to learn more about their peers or the various cultures that build the Ann Arbor community.”
Brandon hopes that people will be able to reference his account to gain this knowledge and bravery to try new things that are often unknown to many in the first place. He says that through visually appealing photographs and promotional videos, even if people do not recognize what the food is in the first place, it naturally motivates them to want to try it. In summary, he definitely wants to continue including a number of different cultures within his social media accounts.
The Intersection Between His Passions and Business
Through his food account, he is able to find an intersection between his passions and business. While some may assume that because he is passionate about digital media and highlighting food through his social media platforms, that he may be interested in marketing. This, however, is not the case. Moving forward in his college career, Brandon aspires to enter a career within finance. One might ask, how does this connect to his food accounts? One of his reasons is that the industry is so dynamic and that there are always opportunities to grow, both professionally and personally. The financial industry is always evolving and expanding, there is always something new to learn or become better educated on. In addition to continuously learning, you are given opportunities within finance to personally grow through working with like-minded individuals who share the same drive and passion as you do. Brandon does have a great interest in investing and managing money, and that is why he is choosing to pursue this career path. However, his food accounts are exposing him to business practices, in an informal and experiential way, and are prepping his foundational skills to be able to thrive within the realm of business. For example, like finance, the food industry is also always expanding, with new innovations being introduced and new restaurants opening up in Ann Arbor. There are limitless opportunities and always new perspectives and opinions being formed on food, especially within a town as educated as Ann Arbor. Through posting food on his social media platform, as mentioned before, he is able to collaborate with others that also share his same passions.
“I want to hopefully end up in private equity or venture capital and there are specific firms that focus their investments on philanthropic efforts and helping small to middle market companies grow,” Brandon says.
By working with others by focusing on communication and interpersonal skills, Brandon is not only able to learn about the diverse cuisines that make up his town, but the diverse individuals of Ann Arbor and their diverse experiences too.
Demonstrating Being An Exceptional Community Member
To summarize, Brandon Kang has been able to foster a unique community through sharing quick flicks, editorials, and videos of the food he eats. Through documenting his life, he is creating a positive narrative of the new Ann Arbor community he is a part of. Restaurants have raved about his help and influence, stating that they have noticed a significant difference and exposure from his social media accounts. It is clear that he is truly passionate about community, inclusivity, digital media, promoting other creators, and building meaningful relationships with others, as he has carried this Instagram account from New Jersey to the state of Michigan. To most, Brandon seems like your everyday, average student, but in reality he serves as an exceptional community member as he attempts to help those around him, each day. He has managed to develop his interests into a philanthropic initiative and aspires to continuously grow this through collaborating with others and creating formal partnerships with Ann Arbor restaurants. Ultimately, Brandon is inspired and motivated through helping those that are underserved, as well as promoting diversity and inclusion. The appreciation of his community and culture that his food account has brought to him, guides his everyday interactions, as he leads with increased perspective and awareness and has his heart set on sharing this love and knowledge with as many people as he can.
