The new Local Foods store being built in Chicago may turn out to be something of village square for the local Good Food movement, bringing together and helping to boost the kinds of small food businesses people used to frequent. And it could, just possibly, serve as a template for the supermarket of the future.
The schedule for this year’s 11th annual Festival & Conference, which takes place March 19-21 at the UIC Forum on the campus of University of Illinois at Chicago, has been released. We hope the details will whet your appetite for the event and persuade you to join this celebration of the fast-growing Good Food movement.
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.
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.
Our previous article on stretching your dollars at farmers markets drew a lot of interest. Even better, it drew several comments — shared here — that are loaded with even more great money-saving ideas.
Those tips are shared here.
Can you find local food on your grocery store shelves? The answer to that question is increasingly “yes” … and FamilyFarmed.org is playing an important role in making that happen — including its work to connect Whole Foods Market with local and regional growers.
New York Times food journalist Mark Bittman notes that there are great bargains to be had at farmers markets. Have you found some? Share them in the comments section of this post!
As a pioneering organic farmer, an academic at Iowa State University’s Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture, and president of New York’s Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture, Fred Kirschenmann is both a practical and intellectual leader in the Good Food movement. In the second of our two-part q-and-a, Kirschenmann discusses obstacles to change in our industrial food system as entrenched interests try to hold their grounds, and why he is hopeful that the rise of “food citizens” will bring change nonetheless.
If you live in or visit the New York City area and care about sustainable food, then the Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture should be on your agenda. To whet your appetite, please enjoy this slide show of photos from a recent stop at Stone Barns.
Food hubs, which provide aggregating, marketing and distribution services to regional food producers, are growing in numbers and influence, according to a survey report released Sept. 19, but still face a number of challenges.