Category: Good Food Business Accelerator

Spiral Sun Ventures

Spiral Sun Ventures Shines Light On Young Good Food Businesses

Posted on by FamilyFarmed

The Good Food movement has gained major ground in recent years, driven by fast-rising consumer demand for better and healthier products. One tangible proof of that is in the growing community of investors who are helping Good Food companies start up and grow. One such company is Chicago’s Spiral Sun Ventures, whose tag line is “Investing In Healthy.” Spiral Sun works mainly with small, early-stage companies. The firm also is a friend of FamilyFarmed, and they exhibited at our 2017 Good Food EXPO. More than that, there are Spiral Sun clients who also are FamilyFarmed Good Food Accelerator Fellows or regular exhibitors at our Good Food Expo.

Cultured Love

For Gut Health, A Whole Lotta Cultured Love

Posted on by FamilyFarmed

Cultured Love, based in Holland, Michigan, produces healthy, probiotic sauerkrauts in a variety of traditional and innovative flavors. Jodie and Paul Krumpe founded the company in 2014 after family illness led them to deeply research the connections between food and health. They exhibited at FamilyFarmed’s Good Food EXPO in March 2017 and enjoyed record on-site sales, an experience that prompted them to apply and get accepted for the current fourth cohort of FamilyFarmed’s Good Food Accelerator.

Help Grow Our Good Food Mission: Donate to FamilyFarmed

Posted on by FamilyFarmed

Everyone eats, and what you eat matters — which is why we at FamilyFarmed are proud of our work growing the availability of Good Food. In the coming weeks, we’ll share stories of the local food and farm entrepreneurs whose mission to produce Good Food has been served by FamilyFarmed, thanks to contributions from Good Foodies like you. We ask for your support so these programs thrive and we can continue to develop new and innovative Good Food initiatives in 2018.

Good Food Accelerator

Meet Our New Good Food Accelerator Fellows

Posted on by FamilyFarmed

Family Farmed is pleased to announce the lineup of entrepreneurs who will be participating in our 2017-18 Good Food Accelerator program. The fourth cohort since the Accelerator was launched in 2014, these nine exciting early-stage businesses were competitively selected from a pool of excellent applicants.

FamilyFarmed Good Food Accelerator Graduates Are On The Rise

Posted on by FamilyFarmed

FamilyFarmed is getting close to announcing the roster of competitively selected Fellows who will participate (from November to April) in the fourth cohort of its Good Food Accelerator. So as a warmup, we’re recalling the nine great business from the third cohort that graduated last spring.

Independent Spirits Expo

Distilling Your Founder’s Story Can Be Key For Entrepreneurs

Posted on by FamilyFarmed

Distill Ventures is the first business accelerator in the distilled spirits industry. FamilyFarmed in 2014 created the Good Food Accelerator, first business accelerator in the United States focused specifically on food produced locally and sustainably. So we were delighted to attend a lecture at the Independent Spirits Expo by Gonzalo De La Pezuela, Distill Ventures’ North America Managing Director, that focused on the entrepreneur’s founder’s story. He made a strong case for how telling the story of how your business came about and what passions drive you help you make the connection with a customer base… or as he frequently described it, your “tribe.”

Good Food Is The Growth Sector In Grocery Industry

Posted on by FamilyFarmed

“Just within the past 10 years, this industry has skyrocketed. Everything around this industry has completely changed. The consumers who shop this industry have changed. It’s no longer just the crunchy hipsters in Boulder.” That is how Anubhav (Anu) Goel described the fast-rising demand for Good Food at the start of his data-driven keynote speech at FamilyFarmed’s Good Food Accelerator Application Celebration at 1871 Chicago last week.

Good Food Accelerator

Good Food Accelerator Businesses Hail Learning and Bonding Experiences

Posted on by FamilyFarmed

FamilyFarmed’s Good Food Business Accelerator (GFA) staged its annual Application Celebration and Networking Event at Chicago’s 1871 business incubator on Tuesday. It included a panel of four GFA graduates moderated by Scott Mandell, a program “supermentor” who founded hugely successful Enjoy Life Foods. And when Scott asked the alums about the biggest change in their businesses fostered by the Accelerator, the response by Mitch Wasserman of Full Belly Foods drew chuckles from the full-house audience.

Kim Bartko’s Decade of Good Food Leadership Earns Grateful FamilyFarmed Sendoff

Posted on by FamilyFarmed

FamilyFarmed salutes longtime associate Kim Bartko, and wishes her success, as she steps aside to focus on her new business venture: Outbound Lab, which seeks to advance the Good Food movement in the U.S. and around the world by forging partnerships between foreign food innovators and domestic food businesses.

FamilyFarmed In The Field: A Big Yellow (Water) Taxi To A Chinatown Lunch

Posted on by FamilyFarmed

The FamilyFarmed crew had been talking for a while about taking a Chicago Water Taxi cruise down to lunch in Chinatown, and we finally set a date. What would have been a fun day out in any case became a special occasion when the team was joined by Jenny Yang of Chicago’s Phoenix Bean Tofu — a fast-growing graduate of the first cohort of Fellows in FamilyFarmed’s Good Food Accelerator,

FamilyFarmed At Play: The Hatchery’s Pop-Up Nest For Fledging Food Firms

Posted on by FamilyFarmed

As part of its efforts to assist its small business associates, The Hatchery food business incubator held a pop-up market, sponsored by Groupon, at downtown Chicago’s Revival Food Hall on Saturday (June 17). So we dropped by to visit with a bunch of our food-making friends — and to purchase some of their delicious products, of course!

FamilyFarmed At Play

FamilyFarmed At Play: Bob Goes To The Farmers Market — The Movie!

Posted on by FamilyFarmed

We at FamilyFarmed are proud of all of the written content that we have provided on Good Food on Every Table. But people have been asking us, “Why don’t you do videos? People love videos!” So in the spirit of giving the people what they want, we present “Bob Goes To The Farmers Market,” the premiere of our FamilyFarmed At Play video series.

Connect (And Party) With Rick Bayless… CEOs of Presence Marketing, KeHE and SPINS… and Support Family Farmers Too!

Posted on by FamilyFarmed

Spending time with leading Good Food business executives — at a gorgeous suburban Chicago home or a yacht cruise on Lake Michigan — sounds like reason enough to bid on two of the headline prizes in the Frontera 30th Anniversary Celebration’s online silent auction. But if you have Good Food business interests and want to learn more about this fast-growing sector that is building a better food system for America, how can you pass up the opportunity to learn from (while partying with) three giants of the Good Food industry: Bill Weiland of Presence Marketing, Brandon Barnholt of KeHe Distributors, and Tony Olson of SPINS, the leading data analyst for the natural and organic products industry.

Good Food Festival

Record Good Food Festival Crowds Reflect A Movement’s Rise

Posted on by FamilyFarmed

The record attendance at FamilyFarmed’s 2017 Good Food Festival & Conference in Chicago underscored important points about the Good Food movement’s growing momentum. More than 7,500 people attended the 13th Good Food Festival & Conference, held March 16-18 at the UIC Forum on the University of Illinois at Chicago campus.

Meet These Promising Businesses Thursday at Good Food Conference

Posted on by FamilyFarmed

FamilyFarmed’s Good Food Financing & Innovation Conference, coming up on Thursday, is Chicago’s must-attend event of the year for investors, retailers, wholesalers, distributors and others who want a heads up about the region’s most promising Good Food businesses and products. And the centerpieces of this world-class networking event are the business pitch event and the Financing Fair.

Top Five Reasons to Attend Thursday’s Good Food Financing Conference

Posted on by FamilyFarmed

The Good Food Financing & Innovation Conference this Thursday (March 16) kicks off FamilyFarmed’s 13th Good Food Festival & Conference — the nation’s longest-running annual event focused on locally and sustainably produced food. Here are our five top reasons to attend

Chicago Food Incubator The Hatchery May Get $1 Million to Build a Bigger Coop

Posted on by FamilyFarmed

The Hatchery, a food business incubator in Chicago, started up just last year with a small space but big plans. Those plans are now taking a giant step toward fruition with $2 million in economic development funding that is being provided by the City of Chicago. The Hatchery also will participate in FamilyFarmed’s Good Food Festival & Conference March 17 and 18.

Good Food Festival & Conference

Pleasant House Can Make Your Day With Pies During Good Food Festival

Posted on by FamilyFarmed

Chicago’s Pleasant House pubs is best known for its flaky, savory Royal Pies. Owners Art and Chelsea Jackson are Fellows in the current cohort of FamilyFarmed’s Good Food Business Accelerator and will participate in our Good Food Financing & Innovation Conference. Their restaurant, located just a mile away, will be open during the three-day Good Food Festival & Conference.

Big Food and Good Food Panel a Highlight of March 16 Financing Conference

Posted on by FamilyFarmed

FamilyFarmed’s three-day, 13th annual Good Food Festival & Conference kicks off on Thursday, March 16 at Chicago’s UIC Forum with the annual Good Food Financing & Innovation Conference.

Tea Squares: Energy Snack Business Gives Caffeine Boost to Chicago’s South Side

Posted on by FamilyFarmed

The promise of healthier snack food alone would have made Chicago’s Tea Squares an excellent candidate for FamilyFarmed’s Good Food Business Accelerator. But Tea Squares’ social mission — which includes creating jobs and stimulating economic growth in its challenged South Side community — was a clincher.