[This article was originally published June 3 on the Huffington Post website.] Featuring pavilions from 140 countries, Italy’s EXPO Milano expects to welcome more than a million visitors through October. FamilyFarmed President Jim Slama was one of them, and he writes about the delicious opportunity he had to explore this historic World’s Fair devoted to sustainable food production, and to tour a few of the amazing regions of Italy.
[The original version of this article was published May 1 on the Huffington Post website.] As FamilyFarmed prepared for the James Beard Foundation Awards in Chicago on May 4, we decided to welcome out-of-town attendees with an article providing “10 delicious facts” about the blossoming Good Food scene in our hometown. We found we had created a pretty sweeping guide to Chicagoland Good Food, so we’re making it a standing feature. And we’d love to hear about the Good Food scene where you live — let civic pride rule!
As many as 90 percent of Americans could be fed entirely by food grown or raised within 100 miles of their homes, which would boost local economies and make agriculture more sustainable, according to new research reported on by Sustainable Food News.
What happens when a group of very committed Good Food activists gets together to discuss ways in which philanthropy and personal action can advance the goals of the movement? It can get personal… but only in the best way.
The glamour of the annual James Beard Foundation Awards, held earlier this month in Chicago, has subsided. So it’s timely to assess what the event meant for the Good Food movement. The bottom line is that the James Beard Awards were very good news for Good Food.
When Harry Carr and his family started Mint Creek Farm in the 1990s, few American consumers had even heard of grass-fed beef, no less bought it for their dinner tables. That has changed dramatically, yet here is still plenty of consumer confusion about the advantages of grass-fed, and plenty of pushback from conventional producers who argue there are no real benefits to choosing grass-fed beef over grain-fed.
The Good Food movement is playing a major role in Detroit’s rising reputation as a “comeback city.” Eastern Market, one of Detroit’s oldest and most historic institutions, is at the core of these efforts to build a thriving local food system, and it recently opened a community kitchen to provide resources for food entrepreneurs.
Chicago on Monday hosted the annual James Beard Foundation culinary awards ceremony, and Rick Bayless was one of the event’s co-chairmen. Famed for popularizing regional Mexican cuisine in the city, he is a celebrity chef with a long-running TV show, and he has just added to his long list of cookbooks. But to many in the Good Food movement, it is his history of helping building the region’s local food system that is his biggest starring role.
by Jim Slama and Bob Benenson, Family Farmed [Note: This article was first published on the Huffington Post news website.] As advocates of the Good Food movement in Chicago, we are honored that the James Beard Foundation Awards are coming to town. The Foundation was created to honor the legacy of chef James Beard. After Read more about Welcome to Chicago, James Beard Foundation: 10 Delicious Facts About the Windy City[…]
The author of the column filmed the documentary The Breach, about the decline of wild salmon and what must be done to preserve remaining populations. Along with its implications for our food supply and sustainable fisheries, the fate of wild salmon is central to the cultures of Native populations along the Pacific Coast.
FamilyFarmed has developed a strong relationship with the federal agency charged with assisting the entrepreneurial sector: the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA). Its Good Food Business Accelerator was a winner of the SBA’s Growth Accelerator Fund competition last year, earning it $50,000 to help launch the program that is rounding out its first six-month session of mentorship for nine competitively selected entrepreneur Fellows.
Differentiation is an important key to success in the expanding sector of artisan food producers. A number of food entrepreneurs have sought their special niche by reaching into their personal experience and background. This is something that Rowida Assalimy did when she launched Kishr, a traditional hot beverage of her parents’ native country of Yemen that she grew up drinking.
One of the very few good things you can say about hard times, such as the recent Great Recession, is that they tend to unleash a lot of entrepreneurial energy. That was certainly the case for the owners of Spark of the Heart, a company that produces dry bean-based soup, salad and sides mixes, who will tell their story at the Good Food Business Accelerator’s Demo Day.
You would be hard-pressed to find a business that is more local, more community-based, and more dedicated to revitalizing economically challenged neighborhoods than Chicago’s Urban Canopy.
The week that organic advocates descend upon Capitol Hill has come to be regarded as Organic Week in D.C., and for good reason. We always have a battalion of organic stakeholders armed with expert knowledge and a passion for the organic community.
Tim Magner is a co-founder, with Elena Marre, of Nature’s Farm Camp, a five-day, four-day summer camp that provides children with hands-on experiences about food and nature. Magner has entertained, educated and inspired kids in a variety of capacities for more than two decades, including as a camp counselor, a children’s book author, and operator of Truck Farm Chicago.
The movement to change the food system is growing stronger every day, and millions of Americans are now demanding a food system that conveys wellness instead of disease, and delivers food that is good for us, good for the people who produce it, and good for the environment.
The damaging impact of “chemical drift” is one of the most critical issues for farmers who practice organic or other sustainable growing methods, some of whom shared their stories of dealing with this problem at the recent Good Food Festival & Conference.
The Band of Farmers Talent and Fashion Show takes place at The Hideout in the Bucktown neighborhood of Chicago tomorrow (Saturday, March 28). This show is the most fun a farmer (and a fan of farmers) can have without playing in the dirt.
Anne Alonzo, administrator of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Marketing Service, says there is a lot of passion for sharing Good Food by supporting strong local and regional food systems — something she experienced firsthand during her trip last week to Chicago, where she spoke at the Good Food Festival & Conference presented by FamilyFarmed.