FamilyFarmed’s 11th annual Good Food Festival & Conference is coming up in Chicago March 19-21. The organization’s efforts to build the Good Food movement have helped farm and food entrepreneurs raise millions of dollars. Iowa’s Tiny But Mighty Popcorn is one of them.
There is hardly a bigger Good Food movement success story than that of Whole Foods Market. So Michael Bashaw — president of Whole Foods Market’s 48-store-and-growing Midwest region — had a very attentive audience when he spoke Monday (Feb. 2) to entrepreneurs, financiers, and others associated with FamilyFarmed’s Good Food Business Accelerator program.
Americans are increasingly health-conscious and concerned about what foods they are putting into their bodies. While there are plenty of nutritious and tasty whole foods out there, it is easy to fall back on the old, less healthy habits of doughnuts or candy bars or chips.
This is an issue that dailyServing, a Chicago-based food startup, aims to address.
Sometimes inspiration comes to you in a laboratory or a conference room. Sometimes it comes in the shower. And sometimes — as was the case of Raj Karmani, founder of the Zero Percent startup that fights both food waste and hunger — it comes during a routine visit to a local bagel shop.
Good Food on Every Table recently posted a story about Chicago’s Koval Distillery and its key role in establishing and growing the craft distilling industry in the city and region. But readers don’t live by words about craft spirits alone. You want recipes!
Retail outlets, restaurants, schools, and other wholesale buyers have a difficult time finding enough local food to meet the fast-rising consumer demand. FamilyFarmed is addressing that issue through its Wholesale Success program, which has scheduled workshops around the country over the course of this year.
It was just seven years ago when the married couple of Sonat Birnecker Hart and Robert Birnecker decided to give up high-level professional careers in the Washington, D.C., area, and start up their Koval Distillery in Chicago. As recent as that seems, they did not join the craft spirits movement within the city of Chicago. They launched it.
To sustain and expand on that growth, though, entrepreneurs and investors must be able to connect and build businesses that expand the supply of Good Food products in local markets. That is the goal of FamilyFarmed’s annual Financing Fair, which is currently accepting applications from entrepreneurs who want to participate.
The Good Food movement is growing rapidly in part because consumers have confidence that the products they buy are what the producers say they are. This also means that those involved across the Good Food sector need to be on guard against any exaggerated or misleading claims that could erode that consumer confidence.
The goal of creating a year-round local food culture in the nation’s northern regions is hindered by relatively short growing seasons. But the increasing number of indoor growing facilities — such as Illinois’ Living Water Farms — is helping to change that.
New Year’s Eve approaches, and the mind turns to bubbly wine. And New Year’s resolutions. And I can tell you from experience that few things stimulate creative thinking about those resolutions than a sparkling wine cocktail spiked with potent distilled spirits.
Paul Fehribach has always been generous about sharing his recipes at his Southern-themed Big Jones restaurant in Chicago. Now he has compiled his tips into The Big Jones Cookbook, coming out this spring.
There is plenty of diversity among the Fellows in FamilyFarmed’s new Good Food Business Accelerator program. But they share a drive to succeed a commitment to expand the Good Food movement.
The National Restaurant Association’s annual predictions of top culinary trends are out — and it looks like 2015 will be another great year for the fast-growing Good Food movement.
Paul Kahan is executive chef and partner in an empire of acclaimed Chicago restaurants. Yet he is not too busy to pursue a favorite cause: teaching food literacy and healthier eating habits to Chicago schoolchildren.
Opportunity awaits you if you own a food-related business if you’re prepared to compete in the crowded holiday marketplace. If you want to have a successful holiday season, now’s the time to get started! Here are some tips.
Organic farmer Atina Diffley’s trip to provide food safety training to small farmers in West Virginia underscored the fact that water quality and quantity is a difficult challenge.
A mosquito-borne illness picked up during a horseback ride in Haiti turned critical for contributing writer Kora Lazarski. It prompted her to think profoundly about the impact of man on nature, and ultimately led to the career she is pursuing in the natural foods and products industry.
The Local Food Association (LFA) is the only national trade association for those in the business of local food. And it will stage its inaugural event, the LOCAL FOOD BUYERS EXCHANGE – Midwest, on Thursday, Nov. 6 at Hyatt Regency O’Hare in the Chicago suburb of Rosemont.
A column by Tom Philpott of Mother Jones magazine says the current U.S. agricultural system, heavily oriented toward producing massive amounts of commodity crops such as corn and soybeans, is a huge money-loser for farmers… and for American taxpayers.