Good Food Business Accelerator panel

Best in Business Highlight Thursday’s Good Food Financing & Innovation Conference

FamilyFarmed’s Good Food Financing & Innovation Conference is coming up Thursday at Chicago’s UIC Forum, and it is a must-do for anyone with an interest in the business of the fast-growing Good Food movement. The event — which makes up the first day of the three-day, 12th annual Good Food Festival & Conference — has an amazing lineup of farm and food entrepreneurs, industry leaders, thought leaders and policy makers.

Paul Kahan and Other Chicago Chefs Spark Pilot Light Program for Kids’ Food Education

There are few more important avenues for ensuring continued progress toward a better U.S. food system than teaching children about healthy food produced sustainably, humanely and fairly. Pilot Light, a chef-driven nonprofit in Chicago, is one of the most promising and innovative programs addressing this priority. Paul Kahan, a co-founder of Pilot Light and FamilyFarmed’s 2016 Good Food Chef of the Year, discusses the program in this Q-and-A.

Butcher Rob Levitt’s Good Food Festival Ham Class Builds on His Customer Service Efforts

Rob Levitt of The Butcher & Larder at Local Foods, one of Chicago’s leading butcher shops, is conducting a ham-curing workshop at FamilyFarmed’s Good Food Festival on March 26. Read here about Levitt’s love of ham, his dedication to providing the highest quality products, and his devotion to consumer education about meat.

The Best Cookbooks of 2016? Ask Read It & Eat, Our Good Food Festival Bookseller

FamilyFarmed’s Good Food Festival — its big public celebration of the Good Food movement — is coming up on Saturday, March 26 at Chicago’s UIC Forum. One of its many features is an authors’ table featuring great books about food, and we are pleased that Read It & Eat, Chicago’s culinary bookstore and event space, Read more about The Best Cookbooks of 2016? Ask Read It & Eat, Our Good Food Festival Bookseller[…]

Something Will Be Brewing at Authors’ Good Food Festival Kombucha Workshop

Family Farmed’s Good Food Festival on Saturday, March 26 is the big annual public celebration that will cap the three-day Good Food Festival & Conference. The Festival is all about hands-on workshops and learning. And we are excited to welcome book authors Hannah Crum and husband Alex LaGory who will be part of our Brew Your Own Kombucha workshop at 1:30 p.m. on March 26.

“A Farmer’s Road” Film About Journey From Classroom to Creamery Leads to the Good Food Festival

Prairie Fruits Farm & Creamery, LLC, located in Champaign, Illinois, makes artisan, farmstead goat cheeses and goat milk gelato from its herd of 80 milking goats. Owners Leslie Cooperband and Wes Jarrell also host Slow Food, farm-to-table meals and other agri-tourism events. And now they are movie stars, And now they are even movie stars, thanks to A Farmer’s Road, a new documentary about Prairie Fruits, which will be shown March 26 at FamilyFarmed’s Good Food Festival.

James Beard Foundation’s Recipe for Change: How the Culinary Community is Creating a Sustainable Food System

FamilyFarmed’s Trade Show & Industry Conference on March 25 — the middle day of its three-day Good Food Festival & Conference — has an exciting new feature: “Recipe for Change: How the Culinary Community is Creating a Sustainable Food System” is a panel moderated by James Beard Foundation Vice President Kris Moon and featuring four of Chicago’s top chefs and Good Food champions. In this contributed column, Moon details the rising tide of chef activism and how the James Beard Foundation has responded with its Chefs Boot Camp for Policy & Change.

Kitchfix Crunches Numbers for Granola Success: A Good Food Business Accelerator Story

Josh Katt, a Chicago chef, came up with the idea for his eight-year-old Kitchfix company while working as a personal chef and creating healthy meals — made from anti-inflammatory superfood ingredients — for customers who were fighting cancer. Kitchfix enabled him to expand the concept to a broader customer base. He grew a business that delivers prepared meals to homes and dropoff points, does catered events, and even has a small store in the Gold Coast neighborhood just north of downtown Chicago. Along the way, Katt and his team hit upon a product they learned had serious commercial potential: a grain-free, superfood-loaded variant of granola. His desire to grow this part of his business led to his participation in FamilyFarmed’s Good Food Business Accelerator.

Improving the Logistics of Delivering Good Food from Farm to Table

One of the biggest challenges in the Good Food supply chain is getting products from farm and processor to market and consumer in a timely, efficient and cost-effective manner. Suzanne Ma, co-founder of the Routific route optimization company, explains in this contributed column how software can help producers deliver their products more effectively.

Plate of the Union Campus Challenge: Win Money to Promote Good Food

Many young people are strongly interested in improving the U.S. food system, and are helping to accelerate the already-fast growth of the Good Food movement. And no small number are working to advance the cause by taking on activist roles on college campuses around the nation. Now the Plate of the Union campaign, staged by three Read more about Plate of the Union Campus Challenge: Win Money to Promote Good Food[…]

Giving Money to Fight Food Waste in Chicago Has Extra Rewards This Week

Make a small, charitable donation this week to help deliver delicious and healthy food from leading Chicago restaurants and other food servers to nonprofit organizations that distribute it to people in need. Get a voucher for a treat from one of dozens of participating outlets. Sound good?

Local Food Fuels Main Street Mojo in Rural Kentucky

Just four years ago, Main Street in the small city of Corbin, Kentucky looked and felt like most downtowns in rural America: Vacant buildings. Empty sidewalks. A few surviving businesses. Today, though, there are thriving businesses and it’s hard to find a parking space on the mile and a half of Corbin’s Main Street. And local food is the engine driving this community’s revival.

Farmer’s Fridge and Its Salad Vending Machines: A Good Food Financing Fair Story

Vending machines. Not exactly what comes to mind when you think of Good Food… Until now, that is, thanks to companies such as Farmer’s Fridge, a business that is selling same-day-fresh jarred salads and healthy snacks from vending machines in dozens of locations around Chicago. This fast-growing company got a boost from participating in FamilyFarmed’s annual Good Food Festival & Conference and its Financial Fair.

How SAAGE’S Shared Kitchen Boosts Startup Food Businesses: A Good Food Festival Story

SAAGE Culinary Studio in the Chicago suburb of Naperville, Illinois, is a shared-use commercial kitchen providing startup food businesses with access to all the commercial grade equipment that they need to make their products. Owner Gayatri Borthakur discusses the philosophy behind the business, which will be a participant in FamilyFarmed’s Good Food Festival & Conference.

Food to Market Challenge Offers $500,000 for Best Idea to Grow Chicago’s Good Food Supply

Many organizations and companies are working hard to untie knots in the supply chain for local and sustainable food in the Chicago area, the nation’s third most populous consumer market. Now the effort is getting a big boost from the Food to Market Challenge, a newly launched competition that will bestow a $500,000 award on the winning concept.

Sugar: The Bitter Global Cost

The new federal dietary guidelines and label recommendations are both still being heavily contested by lobbyists in Washington.
Even so, the word is getting out around the world that sugar is a major cause of the obesity epidemic and the chronic diseases with which that epidemic is often associated.