FamilyFarmed’s Good Food Business Accelerator GFBA is accepting applications through Sept. 19 for its third cohort of competitively selected Fellows in its intensive six-month program, which will run from November to April.
Jenny Yang and her Phoenix Tofu company in Chicago are shining examples of how FamilyFarmed’s Good Food Business Accelerator helps food and farm entrepreneurs build their businesses. Yang is launching a major expansion in response to fast-rising demand, which was the subject of a recent profile in the Chicago Tribune. We have republished an article we wrote about her and Phoenix Tofu last year, with a link to the Tribune story.
George Siemon co-founded and heads Organic Valley, the Wisconsin-based producer of dairy products, meats and vegetables that is the nation’s biggest organic farmer cooperative. The work of the company to advance the Good Food movement was honored with FamilyFarmed’s Good Business Business of the Year Award.
Building the consumer market for Good Food by helping food and farm entrepreneurs start up and scale up is a core principle of FamilyFarmed. It is also the reason why FamilyFarmed in 2014 launched its Good Food Business Accelerator.
So it is no surprise that the competitively selected Fellows who participate in the Good Food Business Accelerator have a high profile at the Financing & Innovation Conference that makes up the first day each year at FamilyFarmed’s Good Food Festival & Conference.
The morning of FamilyFarmed’s Good Food Financing & Innovation Conference Thursday — the first day of the three-day, 12th annual Good Food Festival & Conference — was packed with content, entrepreneurial vision, and inspiration to accelerate the growth of the fast-rising Good Food movement. This photo essay provides a glimpse of the activities that got FamilyFarmed’s big yearly event off to a running start.
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.
The nine Fellows participating in the second cohort of FamilyFarmed’s Good Food Business Accelerator represent a wide range of exciting entrepreneurial ventures — from bakeries to a prepared meal kitchen to an herb farm, from an apple orchard and cidery to packaged Latino food products to a kombucha maker, and more.
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.
Chicago has been something of a laboratory for the rise of the Good Food movement. Yet there has been one element of the movement that has been largely missing in Chicago: food cooperatives. Until now.
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.
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.
By Joel Blechman, FamilyFarmed When I tell people I’m the director of the Good Food Business Accelerator, which FamilyFarmed launched last fall, I’m frequently asked, “What does that mean?” Accelerators — which provide mentorship, networking opportunities, and other assistance to promising entrepreneurial businesses — compose a fast-rising sector that is promoting economic development in the Read more about Good Food Business Accelerator Fellows to Show Their Skills at April 27 Demo Day[…]
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.
There are plenty of business success stories that emerge in the food world. To be a Good Food success story — like the four featured at FamilyFarmed’s Good Food Financing & Innovation Conference in Chicago Thursday — has a special requirement: a commitment to the values of local, sustainable, natural, and healthy food that is the foundation of the fast-growing Good Food movement.
FamilyFarmed’s Good Food Festival & Conference kicked off a packed three-day schedule Thursday with its Good Food Financing & Innovation Conference. The program featured an introduction to the nonprofit organization’s new Good Food Business Accelerator.
Each of the many individual elements packed into the Good Food Festival & Conference would make a great stand-alone event.
T.J. Callahan, the founder and owner of the Farmhouse Tavern restaurants in downtown Chicago and suburban Evanston is a bit wary of the “farm to table” label, which some critics say has been overused to the point of becoming a cliche. “Farm to table, it’s such a nebulous kind of concept,” Callahan said in an interview with Good Food on Every Table. “So we’ve called ourself, from day one, a ‘Midwestern craft tavern.'”
Finding sourcing for financial capital has been one of the major dilemmas that many startups (and even some better-established players) face in the fast-growing Good Food movement. Fortunately, the money gap is starting to be filled by venture capital groups that see the business potential in the Good Food movement. Chicago’s SLoFIG, an acronym for Sustainable LOcal Food Investment Group, was one of the first to see — and seize — the opportunity.
The Good Food Financing & Innovation Conference that kicks off FamilyFarmed’s annual three-day Good Food Festival & Conference is well established, as a dynamic event that connects food and farm entrepreneurs with investors and lenders. Businesses participating in the event have raised $11 million over the past three years.
Promising businesses in the Midwest’s local and sustainable food sector have raised $11 million from investors over the past three years by participating in FamilyFarmed’s annual Good Food Financing & Innovation Conference. Not surprisingly, this year’s event — coming up on Thursday, March 19 — has another lineup of outstanding entrepreneurs.