Image: Andriy Bezuglov

This is a guest post by Elizabeth Tilton is the founder and CEO of Oyster Sunday

In this time of unprecedented crisis for the restaurant industry, many operators are turning to alternative revenue sources, like gift card sales and GoFundMe campaigns, to create relief funds for their employees, the majority of whom they have been forced to lay off of furlough in the past few weeks. While these are immediate solutions to immediate needs, restaurants should be aware of the tax implications on their business in order to help guide their decision making.

Below you will find resources we’ve compiled to help restaurants navigate these alternative revenue sources and their tax implications.

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Overview of Tax Implications

Gift Cards

Taxability of Gift Card Sales

Restaurants selling gift cards should review state laws [here] and the regulation of redemption (i.e. gift cards cannot expire within five years from the date they were activated). It is also critical for restaurants to ensure that they are appropriately recording income from gift card sales, and below are three options for doing so [source 1]:

• Cash basis method – Income is recorded on the tax return in the year in which it was sold.
• One-year deferral method – Income is recorded at the earlier of either the redemption of the gift card or one taxable year following the sale of the gift card.
• Two-year deferral method – Income is recorded at the earlier of either the redemption of the gift card or two taxable years following the sale of the gift card.

Taxability of Giving Gift Cards to Employees as a Form of Payment

If a restaurant gives a gift card to an employee as a form of payment, that is considered taxable under IRS code section 102 [source 2].

Redemption Terms

Restaurants should strongly consider creating redemption terms for gift cards, particularly as they start to think about reopening their doors because this will directly affect their cash flow. It may be wise to think about terms that explicitly state guests can redeem gift cards a certain amount of time after the purchase date (i.e. six months after).

GoFundMe Campaigns

Small Business Relief Initiative

GoFundMe.org recently created the Small Business Relief Initiative to help small businesses that have been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, and will issue matching $500 grants to qualifying businesses that raise at least $500 on GoFundMe. There should be no tax implications for the GoFundMe Small Business Relief Initiative per the following statement on its website:

“There should be no tax implications because you have established that you are a small business negatively impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. GoFundMe.org will not require any goods or services to result from the grant; instead it is provided to you as a gift. That said, we cannot provide you any tax advice as everyone’s situation is different and tax rules change from time to time. We recommend you speak to a financial advisor.” [source 9]

Beyond the Small Business Relief Initiative

Generally speaking, GoFundMe is required to file a Form 1099 for campaigns that receive over $20,000 in donations or more than 200 total donations.

There is conflicting advice from those who have received large donations via GoFundMe about how the IRS processes the amount, but to be safe it is always best to report amounts over $20,000 as a 1099 since GoFundMe will be reporting it as well. Restaurants should record the 1099 income as income, and then on another income line, report an offsetting reduction and add a short explanation, such as:

“All amounts reflected in the 1099-K are excludable from income under IRC Section 102. These amounts reflect the money the taxpayer received as the result of gifts from donors. Those gifts were used to pay [XX] of the taxpayer and are excludable from gross income.” [source 10]

The taxable amount is completely dependent on the donated amount.

501(c)(3) Organizations

A large number of restaurants are deciding to create or partner with 501(c)(3) organizations in order to accept tax-exempt donations that they can give directly to their employees. A 501(c)(3) organization is a corporation, trust, unincorporated association, or other type of organization exempt from federal income tax under section 501(c)(3) of Title 26 of the United States Code.

One of the primary benefits of being tax-exempt under IRC Section 501(c)(3) is the ability to accept contributions and donations that are tax-deductible to the donor. Additional benefits include, but are not limited to [source 11]:

• Exemption from federal and/or state corporate income taxes
• Possible exemption from state sales and property taxes (varies by state)
• Ability to apply for grants and other public or private allocations available only to IRS-recognized,
• 501(c)(3) organizations
• Potentially higher thresholds before incurring federal and/or state unemployment tax liabilities

More information about exemption requirements for 501(c)(3) organizations is available on the IRS’s website, as well as a step-by-step application which includes questions and answers that will help an organization determine if it is eligible to apply for recognition of exemption from federal income taxation under IRC section 501(a) and, if so, how to proceed. Please consult your CPA for additional information.

Allocation of Funds

What are the implications of distributing gifts to employees / individuals (both those who were laid off or furloughed) with the money donated by gift cards or GoFundMe campaigns?

If restaurants distribute gifts to employees and the money is in exchange for services, such as using these funds to pay employees who are helping with delivery or cooking, this money is counted as wages and needs to be documented and paid as such.

If the money is gifted to individuals with no return of services (i.e. those who were laid off or furloughed), this is seen as a true gift and is excluded from the regular rate of pay.

The annual gift tax exclusion is $15,000 for both the 2019 and 2020 tax year, which is the amount of money that an individual or company can give as a gift to one person, in any given year, without having to pay a gift tax.

Are income replacement payments excluded from qualified disaster relief payments, and if so, does this require a portion of funds to be withheld to pay as income tax?

President Trump determined that the COVID-19 pandemic warranted a nationwide emergency declaration under the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act, thereby giving employers the opportunity to provide tax-free assistance to their employees under Section 139 of the IRS Code. 

However, this does not apply to income replacement payments, which is outlined in the below paragraph from an article entitled “COVID-19: Section 139 Employer-Provided Tax-Free Disaster Relief Benefits” from national law firm Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney: 

“Section 139 provides that qualified disaster relief payments from any source reimbursing or paying an individual for certain expenses in connection with a qualified disaster are not subject to income or employment taxes (Social Security, Medicare, and federal unemployment taxes). For this purpose, a qualified disaster relief payment includes any amount paid by an employer to or for the benefit of an employee to reimburse or pay “reasonable and necessary” personal, family, living, or funeral expenses incurred as a result of a qualified disaster. Qualified disaster relief payments, however, do not include: (i) payments for expenses that are otherwise paid for by insurance or other reimbursements; or (ii) income replacement payments, such as the payment of lost wages, lost business income, or unemployment compensation [source 12].”

We recommend talking to your CPA to understand how to best track and categorize any such payments to employees so you can understand how to most effectively allocate relief funds to your team.

Full Report

You can view Oyster Sunday’s full report here. Please also visit our website for a list of consolidated resources from around the U.S. as we continue to provide relevant and updated information regarding the COVID-19 crisis.

Oyster Sunday is committed to supporting independent restaurants with in-kind consultations to ensure they have another resource in their corner during these unimaginably trying times. From communicating with your team to thinking through cash flow constraints, please contact us. Beyond our leadership team, we are connected with a remarkable community of professionals — lawyers, PR professionals, accountants, CPAs, copywriters and more —who have generously offered to donate their time and resources to restaurants that need help navigating this crisis.

Information Sources

(1) RSM Accounting: Retailers must be mindful of gift card tax pitfalls [Here]

(2) New York Governor Cuomo Signs New Protections for Consumers Using Gift Cards Into Law [Here] 

(3) National Governance of State Legislatures | Gift Cards + Gift Certificates Statutes + Legislation [Here]

(4) HR Daily Advisor: Ask the Expert: Are All Gift Cards Taxable Income? [Here]

(5) Washington State University: PayRoll: Taxability of Gift Cards [Here]

(6) BDO Tax Accounting: Five Common Myths that Lead to Tax Reporting Errors [Here]

(7) Apartment Therapy: New York State Just Passed a Law Making Gift Cards Easier to Use [Here]

(8) GoFundMe: Taxes for Organizers [Here]

(9) GoFundMe: Small Business Relief Fund Grant FAQ [Here]

(10) Pittsburgh Post Gazette: GoFundMe helps those who need it, but don’t forget about the IRS [Here]

(11) Foundation Group: What benefit does being 501(c)(3) offer my nonprofit and its contributors? [Here]

(12) Buchanan, Ingersoll, Rooney: COVID-19: Section 139 Employer-Provided Tax-Free Disaster Relief Benefits [Here]

(13) Forbes: Little-Known Tax Law Allows Employers To Make Tax-Free Payments To Employees To Cover Covid-19 Expenses [Here]

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About: Oyster Sunday is a hospitality group based in New Orleans and New York City with the mission to reevaluate and reimagine the business infrastructure necessary to support stable, progressive restaurants and culinary businesses. To bring this idea to life, we establish strategic partnerships across the food and beverage industry, providing consolidated branding and operational support for independent food and beverage companies with a point of view. We believe that if we pool resources across many operators—regardless of location or chef—we’re able to build an economy of scale that gives us all a seat at the table. Please visit our website and follow us on Instagram.

Elizabeth Tilton is the founder and CEO of Oyster Sunday. Elizabeth started her career as a pastry cook in New Orleans, and in 2012 moved to NYC to join David Chang’s restaurant group, Momofuku. There she helped manage public relations, marketing, and major partnerships for the restaurant group. In 2015 she became the Head of Brand at W&P, a vertically-integrated design and manufacturing company developing culinary products, where she managed the launch of over 300 products including product partnerships with Lucas Films, Williams-Sonoma, West Elm, and Food52. She launched Oyster Sunday in late 2019.

The post Will My Restaurant Get Taxed on Gift Cards & GoFundMe Campaigns? appeared first on Food+Tech Connect.

Food+Tech Connect and The Future Market are hosting Biodiversity: The Intersection of Taste & Sustainability, an editorial series featuring interviews with over 45 leading food industry CEOs, executives, farmers, investors and researchers on the role of biodiversity in the food industry. Read all of the interviews here. 

MAD believes chefs have the power to transform our food system. Founded by restaurant noma’s René Redzepi, the organization gives chefs and restaurateurs the knowledge, skills and community they need to drive real change in their restaurants and communities through its Symposium, programming, publications and media. Celebrating the abundance and unique flavors of the natural world has always been a priority of Redzepi’s, as evidenced by his forage-driven menus, so it is no surprise that biodiversity is a key priority for the organization. In 2017, it even launched VILD MAD, or Wild Food, an app and program to help chefs and young people learn about foraging for food.

Below, I speak with Melina Shannon-DiPietro, executive director of MAD, about how the organization is creating a global community of chefs who are leaders in sustainability and biodiversity.

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Danielle Gould: Is biodiversity a priority for MAD? If so, how and why?

Melina Shannon-DiPietro: One of MAD’s priorities, a pillar of its organization, is giving the hospitality industry the skills, approaches and perspectives needed to proactively lead on environmental sustainability in their kitchens and outside the walls of their restaurants. Biodiversity is central to this approach, so much so that we created a program called VILD MAD or Wild Food (more details below).

Biodiversity builds resilience into our system; whereas over reliance on too few varieties or species leaves our food systems vulnerable to shocks and stresses. What’s more, biodiversity can source high-impact solution to health, environmental and food security challenges.

Chefs influence what’s on our plates. The ubiquitous baby salad mix was a chef’s influence. Now we need chefs to consistently lead on climate-friendly foods.

By creating a network of talented chefs and by fostering the conversations between the different actors in the food world, MAD focuses its attention on biodiversity both from the production and consumption perspective. Chefs are at the center.

DG: What is MAD doing or planning to do to promote biodiversity?

MSD: Our VILD MAD, or Wild Food, project, is the first program of its kind to bring chefs and young people out into nature to see biodiversity first hand; to give them encyclopedic knowledge to forage; and to support them with ongoing resources, from recipes to ecological approaches. The program includes “safaris” into nature in Denmark, as well as an app that is available, in English and Danish, no matter your geographic location. These tools expand one’s ideas of food and flavors and fosters curiosity about the natural environment.

DG: What is the business case for promoting a more biodiverse food system?

MSD: Customers are interested in health. Eating variations of the same four crops, served up in different ways, doesn’t make for good health. Companies who want to be serving tomorrow’s customers will be looking for greater diversification in their portfolio.

We know in financial investing, diversification makes good sense. That’s also the case in thinking about the world’s resources: we want the built-in intelligence of a sustainable food system.

We talk a lot now about artificial intelligence: at its best, it’s an intelligence that makes us smarter. Ecological systems already have innate intelligence; we’ve disrupted them in a way that makes them dumber. Now we need to reverse our approach to take advantage of their natural intelligence.

DG: What investments need to be made to create a more biodiverse food system?

MSD: We see chefs, and the hospitality industry at large, as one major lever for change; so, we’re investing – and inviting partners – to invest in MAD’s programming. Chefs face a major challenge as they are called on to be actors for the twenty-first century: they need the time and space to meet, collaborate and learn from experts in ecology, biodiversity and climate change.

In the EU, recent legislation means chefs and restaurants may need to take some foraged, biodiverse crops off their menus. We want government to more pro-actively partner with the restaurant industry before setting policy.

DG: Does your average customer care about biodiversity today? Why should they care? How do you (or will you) get them to care?

MSD: I’m struck by how much people do not know about biodiversity. When was the last time you took a walk in the forest? Tried to identify plants you see along a walk? Ate something you didn’t recognize?

What I see is each time we bring people out into nature for a foraging trip – whether it’s a kitchen stage, a Michelin-star chef or a Fortune 500 CEO – is that they see the land in a whole new way. They see nature as a larder; full of ingredients for our health and that are tasty, and they see more of our interdependence with nature, and they want to do more to protect it.

DG: What are the greatest challenges and opportunities your organization faces for creating a more biodiverse agricultural system, and what are you doing to overcome or capture them?

MSD: We need to move faster as a society. We need to build bridges and be more collaborative across sectors and break down the wall that’s grown between conventional and alternative agriculture.

In the next year, we’re getting more chefs out into nature to experience foraging and to understand biodiversity better. We are encouraging those same chefs to partner with farmers who can cultivate new and diverse crops; or harvest from the edges. We’ve already seen in Denmark that what chefs put on the plate ends up in the grocery stores.

DG: What are some of the most important things restaurants can do to support biodiversity?

MSD: Restaurants employ X percent of the population; they influence and shape culture; they speak to the media and to the general public. Restaurants can be a space for experimentation and discovery when it comes to new flavors, and of education for their teams and their customers.

DG: Are there certain products you would like to see more of in the food industry that would help promote a more biodiverse agricultural system?

MSD: My vision is too big for a computer screen. I’d like to see hundreds of varieties of maize, apples, tomatoes. I’d like to see thousands of partnerships like Dan Barber’s work with Cornell to build a better butternut squash.

I’d like to see the food industry – the people working in food systems – equipped with knowledge about ecosystems and agriculture. Knowledge changes everything.

DG: What is your vision for what a more biodiverse food system looks like in 10-15 years?

MSD: Let’s start by seeing more diversity in crops and in flavors, in supermarkets, school cafeterias, and restaurants across the board; let’s see more people out, and posting on Instagram the new foods and flavors they’ve discovered. Maybe some of them will go discover them in the wild.

Read all of our biodiversity interviews here and learn more about Biodiversity at The Future Market.

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Melina Shannon-DiPietro, Executive Director of MAD

(Danish for food) the non-profit organization founded by René Redzepi of restaurant noma. MAD is transforming our food system by inspiring and empowering cooks, servers, and eaters to create sustainable change in their communities. Melina has been building programs, public dialogue, and partnerships that evolve our understanding of food, community, and environment for eighteen years. Prior to MAD, Melina was a director at Friends of the High Line, the organization that transformed an abandoned elevated rail line into one of New York City’s best-loved public parks. Melina began her work in food as co-founder of the Yale Sustainable Food Program. Originally from Albany, New York, Melina now lives in Copenhagen, Denmark.

The post How MAD Helps Chefs Transform & Diversify Our Food System appeared first on Food+Tech Connect.

Food+Tech Connect and The Future Market are hosting Biodiversity: The Intersection of Taste & Sustainability, an editorial series featuring interviews with over 45 leading food industry CEOs, executives, farmers, investors and researchers on the role of biodiversity in the food industry. Read all of the interviews here. 

Sweetgreen made a big splash last year when it put the Koginut Squash, a new squash bred for flavor by Row 7 Seed Company, on its menu. The Koginut Squash Bowl received considerable social media influencer attention and mainstream press (like Vogue, Fast Company and The Washington Post). It even landed a Times Square Billboard. Rather than leading with the sustainability benefits, the campaign to make this new vegetable a pop culture sensation centered on flavor. As we think about how to broaden the pool of people who care about the sustainability of their food, this collaboration serves as a great example of how to make heady stuff stuff like biodiversity and sexy.

Below, I speak with sweetgreen co-founder and chief concept officer Nic Jammet talks about how sweetgreen thinks about biodiversity and encourages it across its supply chain.

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Danielle Gould: Is biodiversity a priority for your sweetgreen? If so, how and why?

Nic Jammet: At the farm level, biodiversity is a priority for us when we approach sourcing local produce. At a larger scale, we look to maintain a wide variety of agro-ecosystems by incorporating a diversity of animal based and non-animal based proteins on our plant-forward menu.

This past September, we made biodiversity a priority by introducing Koginut Squash to the menu. This new seed bred for flavor in partnership with Row 7 Seed Company has the potential to change what we eat and where it comes from a scale never before seen.

Row 7 and sweetgreen’s nationwide collaboration supports a shared commitment to delicious, sustainable and nutritious food from the ground up. Part of sweetgreen’s food ethos has always been finding ways to source smarter, make better decisions and help customers be a positive force in the world and on the food system.

Sweetgreen works with our 100+ local farmers, several of whom planted and harvested 23 acres of Koginut Squash (equal to 100,000 seeds) across the country, making them the first mass scale partner to work with Row 7 in its mission to make better seeds and ingredients more accessible to all.

DG: How does sweetgreen define and think about biodiversity? Why?

NJ: At the farm level, we define biodiversity as a farm that harvests 5 or more different crop varieties. We also evaluate the following aspects of a farm:

• Crop rotation

• Integrated Pest Management practices

• Plants polinator abitats

• Green manure application/compost

• Biodynamic certifications

• Soil management planning

• Cover cropping

DG: What is sweetgreen doing to promote biodiversity?

NJ: We support growers who practice biodiversity, and we also discuss what is important to us (above) with those growers who do not practice it currently. It factors into our purchasing decisions.

Transparency of where food is coming from and how it is grown sustainably is one of the best ways to support biodiverse growers who are trying to make a positive, lasting impact on the food system. We need to give credit back to them, create long-term sourcing relationships, and expand the marketplace so that consumers understand that their dollar can have significant impact every time they buy food (which is often!).

DG: What are the greatest challenges and opportunities sweetgreen faces for creating a more biodiverse agricultural system?

SG: A big challenge is the lack of support for small to medium sized growers who are trying to support biodiversity quite simply because it is the right thing to do. The marketplace is set up to support cheap food versus supporting growers utilizing practices such as biodiversity.

DG: What is your vision for what a more biodiverse food system looks like in 10-15 years?

NJ: In 10-15 years, we intend to show that this country does not have to only grow corn, soy and wheat, but we can grow a wide variety of crops that improve soil health and are more profitable than the monocrops that we’ve defaulted to. A great example is the movement in Montana growing legumes. They’re converting conventional wheat growers and having them grow organic chickpeas and lentils. Those crops are more profitable and the demand continues to grow.

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Nicolas Jammet, Co-Founder & Chief Concept Officer of sweetgreen

Nic Jammet is Co-Founder & Chief Concept Officer of sweetgreen, the destination for simple, seasonal, healthy food. Nicolas graduated from Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business, where he met fellow sweetgreen co-founders and co-CEOs, Nathaniel Ru and Jonathan Neman. In 2015, First Lady Michelle Obama selected Nicolas for the Presidential Delegation to EXPO 2015, an international summit to discuss global nutrition and health as well as sustainable food solutions. He has been recognized as a key innovator in food and business, named to Fast Company’s “Most Creative People in Business,” Inc.’s “30 Under 30”, Forbes’ “30 Under 30” and Food & Wine’s “40 Big Food Thinkers 40 and Under”. In 2016, sweetgreen was named one of Fast Company’s “Most Innovative Companies.”

The post Sweetgreen’s Flavor-Forward Approach to Biodiversity appeared first on Food+Tech Connect.

From January 7 – February 8, Food+Tech Connect and The Future Market are hosting Biodiversity: The Intersection of Taste & Sustainability, an editorial series featuring interviews with over 45 leading food industry CEOs, executives, farmers, investors and researchers on the role of biodiversity in the food industry. See the full list of participants and read about why biodiversity in food is important here. 

Fast casual chain Dig Inn is committed to supporting more sustainable agricultural practices and healthier eating. Below Taylor Lanzet, director of supply and sustainability, and Larry Tse, farm manager, talk to me about how the restaurant uses its platform to support its 102 farm partners in experimenting with new crops and growing processes, as well as executing whole year, multi-crop plans. In addition to supporting minority-run and small-scale farms, it also runs a farm in Upstate New York to connect its chefs more deeply to produce where it’s grown.

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Danielle Gould: Is biodiversity a priority for Dig Inn? If so, how and why?

Larry Tse: Dig Inn believes that to grow our business based on sustainable and healthy eating habits, we must also work to grow the environmental and economic sustainability of our farm partners and the agricultural industry as a whole. We know that by encouraging farmers to look holistically at their farms and practice more aggressive crop rotations, wildlife diversity protection, and reduced spray programs their operations can continue to thrive into the indefinite future. Creating systems that work in tune with nature, rather than fighting it, will lead to farms that are more resilient against the challenges that a changing climate will bring, such as inclement weather, fast-moving diseases, and increased pest pressure. If we can encourage our partners to implement more sustainable habits, we can create a supply chain with fewer interruptions and grow our partners’ businesses alongside our own.

DG: What is Dig Inn doing or planning to do to promote biodiversity?

LT: Our constantly changing menu supports our farm partners in executing whole year, multi-crop plans – instead of buying lettuce from a single farm year-round, our menu shifts with the seasons, allowing farmers to grow and retain business from us throughout the year.

On the Dig Inn Farm, we run a robust farmer training program that aims to teach our apprentices how to grow every single crop they might encounter on another farm. We create pollinator habitats by allowing older crops to flower rather than mow, and plan to work with the Natural Resources Conservation Service to plan out large scale pollinator habitats in the future. As an organic farm, we aim to limit the use of OMRI allowed broad-spectrum pesticide as much as possible via use of floating row covers and physical barriers like kaolin clay.

DG: What is the restaurant business case for biodiverse agriculture?

LT: The backbone of our business are our farm partners that keep us constantly supplied with fresh produce. By encouraging our producers to be more conscious of the holistic health of their farm systems, we are insulating our supply chain from interruptions due to disease, fertility, and growth issues that come from monocropping a field year on end. By growing different crops and new product that we can use on our menus, we are also increasing their operations financial sustainability, thereby continuously growing relationships with our farmers into the future.

DG: What investments need to be made to create a more biodiverse food system?

LT: We believe in building strong relationships with our growers while encouraging them to limit the use of pesticide/fungicide/herbicide applications, grow a more diverse array of crops, and increase land set aside for wild flower and pollinator habitats. By building a mutual trust between restaurants and partners, we assure our growers that by taking a risk in using new practices, we will still commit to buying the produce they send, even if they suffer from some damage or other issues that arise during the early stages of new systems. We need to be there for our producers when they take risks in a low-margin industry, and if that means shifting the food system away from only taking A-grade produce, then so be it.

DG: What are the greatest challenges and opportunities farmers face for creating a more biodiverse system? What are you doing to overcome or capture them?

LT: Many farmers want to try new systems that improve soil health or encourage biodiversity, but don’t know how to begin and are worried about investing in a new system in an industry where so much can go wrong. We believe that the obsession with perfect, blemish free produce is hurting farmers in considering how they want to implement new systems moving forward. If we can commit to buying produce that has blemishes while still paying our partners a fair wage, we believe they would be more comfortable trialing new systems that they may result in below-average graded produce that they could still find a market for.

DG: How might we get more restaurants to invest in biodiverse agriculture?

Taylor Lanzet: Restaurants need to work with farmers and suppliers to understand their challenges and support them financially and emotionally as they test new varieties and invest in new practices. They also need to support them by purchasing product that is cosmetically imperfect.

DG: What are some of the most important things food manufacturers, retailers, chefs and other key actors across the food supply chain can do to support biodiverse agriculture?

TL: Start planning with your farmers in the off season! Don’t just commit to varieties that they have grown year after year, but express excitement for new varieties or heirloom varieties that are native to a region. Ask your farmer what she is excited to grow and help her find a channel for that product.

DG: Are there certain products you would like to see more of in the food industry — either in foodservice or CPG — that would help promote a more biodiverse agricultural system?

TL: More fish! So many folks just eat the same species of fish – its a beautiful ocean out there and we need be more adventurous and celebrate more diverse species.

DG: What is your vision for what a more biodiverse food system looks like in 10-15 years?

LT: Ultimately, what will drive the agriculture industry forward to adopting more sustainable farming techniques are more conversations and dialogues between farmers from all across the industry spectrum. We should be bringing together conventional and organic, small-scale and large, biodynamic and agroforestry, and everyone in between to talk about how their systems benefit their operations and what we can borrow and learn from one another to change our industry as a whole.

TL: To make changes to the food system, we can’t just villainize large scale farming – that hasn’t gotten us as far as we want. We need to learn from these growers and industry partners to understand how we can influence and educate each other. Dig Inn’s mission is to rebuild the food system – and for that, we need to include everyone from farm workers to  fishermen to buyers to politicians.

Read all of the interviews here and learn more about Biodiversity at The Future Market.

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Taylor Lanzet, Director of Supply & Sustainability

Taylor Lanzet is the Director of Supply & Sustainability of Dig Inn, a vegetable-forward, farm-to-counter restaurant group. Dig Inn offers an alternative to the industrial food system by cultivating a network of sustainable farmers and producers to bring tasty, healthful and mindfully sourced food to everyone. Taylor focuses on Dig Inn’s sourcing and sustainability initiatives within the supply chain — working directly with farmers to source underutilized vegetables, efforts to work with women and marginalized farmers, and new approaches to disrupt the bind between economic status and ability to eat good food. She also leads the Dig Farm project, working alongside the Dig Farmer, Taylor launched the company’s 12 acre farm in the Chester, NY. The farm compliments the supply chain allowing for more culinary innovation at Dig Inn and invests in the future of farming.

In addition to her work with Dig Inn, she was the Associate Producer to Heritage Radio Network’s Eating Matters podcast and regularly participates in conferences and panels on agricultural policy, social responsibility and sustainability. Prior to Dig Inn, Taylor graduated from Brown University (’15) with a B.A. in Environmental Studies. While at Brown, Taylor managed a food hub, recognized by the USDA and White House, which connects low-income Brown students, staff and faculty with healthy and local produce.

Twitter: @TayLanzet / Instagram: @taylanzet

Larry Tse, Farm Manager

Larry joined the Dig Inn team as  Farm Manager upon the company’s decision to lease land in Westchester, NY to cultivate a living and learning space for growing food. After studying agricultural policy at George Washington University in D.C., Larry began his career as a produce buyer for NYC’s Northern Spy, riding his bike to farmer’s markets around the city to source produce for the restaurant. He moved into farm management while working on two different small-scale farms in Pennsylvania, and then New York, before planting his roots at Dig Inn in January 2017.

Farmer Larry (as he’s known to our Dig Inn community) oversees both the people and plants on Dig’s farm, training new farmers and developing an apprentice program, being a good neighbor to our peers at the Chester Agricultural Center, and collaborating with Dig Inn’s supply team and chefs to ensure product is moved seamlessly from the farm to restaurants.

Instagram: @thelarbear

The post Dig Inn on Supporting Experimentation & New Growing Practices on Farms appeared first on Food+Tech Connect.

From January 7 – February 8, Food+Tech Connect and The Future Market are hosting Biodiversity: The Intersection of Taste & Sustainability, an editorial series featuring interviews with over 45 leading food industry CEOs, executives, farmers, investors and researchers on the role of biodiversity in the food industry. See the full list of participants and read about why biodiversity in food is important here. 

Below, I speak with Paul Newnham, director of SDG2 Advocacy Hub, about galvanizing chefs to support biodiversity. The SDG2 Advocacy Hub is an initiative bringing together NGOs, advocacy groups, civil society, the private sector and UN agencies to lead campaigns and advocacy work to achieve Sustainable Development Goal 2 (SDG2): to end hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition, and promote sustainable agriculture by 2030. Biodiversity is one of the five goals of SDG2.

As part of this work, the Hub has worked with over 240 chefs from 38 countries to create a Chefs’ Manifesto, a framework outlining how chefs can contribute to the SDGs. This year, it’s working with its Chefs’ Network to champion the use of alternative grains.

Read all of the interviews here and learn more about Biodiversity at The Future Market.

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Danielle Gould: Is biodiversity a priority for SDG2 Advocacy Hub? If so, how and why?

Paul Newnham: Yes, biodiversity is a priority of the SDG2 Advocacy Hub. Biodiversity is one of the 5 targets of SDG2 and the only goal that is set to be achieved by 2020 — just a year away at this point. As such, there is an urgency here to do more and faster to maintain the world’s genetic diversity and ensure access to genetic resources. At a conceptual level, I see biodiversity as a spearhead that can drive action for SDG2 more generally as biodiversity is closely related to good food, sustainable agriculture, climate resilience, improved nutrition, etc.

DG: How does SDG2 Advocacy Hub define and think about biodiversity? What does an ideal biodiverse food system look like?

PN: As the SDG2 Advocacy Hub is aligned with the Global Goals, we use the UN definition for biodiversity as “the variety of plant and animal life in the world, including their genetic diversity and the variety of species and ecosystems.” As such, an ideal biodiverse food system would be a colorful plate that celebrates a diverse range of species and varieties. Again, as part of SDG2.5, biodiversity is measured in two ways:

1. Number of plants and animal genetic resources for food and ag secured in either medium or long-term conservation facilities

2. Proportion of local breeds classified as being at risk, not-at-risk or at unknown level of risk of extinction

DG: What isSDG2 Advocacy Hub doing or planning to do to promote biodiversity?

PN: To help promote biodiversity, the SDG2 Advocacy has developed the Chefs’ Manifesto, which looks at Biodiversity in one of the 8 focus areas. In 2019, we will support the Food Forever 2020 initiative to drive action and awareness on biodiversity loss. The Hub will engage the Chefs’ Network to support and champion alternative grains. More practically, it will drive consumers towards more diverse eating habits by showcasing success stories of rediscovered, diverse foods to bring into the mainstream.

DG: What is the business case for promoting a more biodiverse food system?

PN: There is a great example in India where Original Indian Table supports smallholder farmers’ access to markets by partnering with chefs and selling rediscovered grains such as amaranth, flax seeds and millet. Based in West Africa, Yolélé Foods is another great example of a business championing the grain fonio in the US to stimulate a sustainable market that can help support fonio farmers in West Africa.

DG: What investments need to be made to create a more biodiverse food system?

PN: Greater funding is required to support research in alternative grains, as well as to generate a market for this good. These actions can help to support more farmers to in turn adopt traditional grains.

DG: Why should eaters care about biodiversity? How do you (or will you) get them to care?

PN: Eaters should care about biodiversity because it’s exciting new food to try that’s tasty and engages their senses. Many of these foods are better for you and the planet. I believe that if good food is presented on a plate with a story, you can get people to try anything. The Chefs’ Manifesto Network is doing this in a range of countries through dinners and workshops.

DG: What are the greatest challenges and opportunities SDG2 Advocacy Hub faces for creating a more biodiverse agricultural system, and what are you doing to overcome or capture them?

PN: The fragmented landscape of SDG2 and lack of advocacy on biodiversity poses a challenge to rallying SDG2 actors around biodiversity. We are trying to remedy this by championing biodiversity as a core policy area in the coming year, as well as creating biodiversity touch points in upcoming events in 2019, highlighting the importance of biodiversity and how it can deliver for nutrition, livelihoods, climate, etc.

DG: What are some of the most important things chefs can do to support biodiversity?

PN: Chefs can do much to champion biodiversity inside and outside of the kitchen by adding alternate grains to their menus and teaching people how to cook with them. These actions will help to drive demand for some of the more obscure foods that have been present for centuries.

DG: Are there certain products you would like to see more of in the food industry — either in foodservice or CPG — that would help promote a more biodiverse agricultural system?

PN: I think there needs to be a greater exposure to diverse ingredients.  This can happen through showcasing events such as the Food Forever Experience held in NYC in September.

DG: What is your vision for what a more biodiverse food system looks like in 10-15 years?

PN: My vision is we will be eating a more diverse set of plant-based ingredients and markets will shift to meet this new demand. In order to do this, we need a focus on innovation in research around agriculture, sharing of this information with farmers and data to measure progress.

Read all of the interviews here and learn more about Biodiversity at The Future Market.

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Paul Newnham, Director of the SDG 2 Advocacy Hub

Paul Newnham is the director for the SDG2 Advocacy Hub, an initiative bringing together NGOs, advocacy groups, civil society, the private sector and UN agencies to coordinate global campaigning and advocacy to achieve Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 2. To this end, the Hub has worked with a community of 240+ chefs from 38 countries to create a Chefs’ Manifesto- a framework outlining how chefs can contribute to the SDGs. As a result of this work, Paul works closely with Chefs across the globe to make a local difference in the kitchen everyday for global change.

Paul has over 20 years’ experience in National and Global roles with a focus on Campaigning, Youth Mobilisation, Advocacy, Marketing and Communication.  As a dynamic and strategic innovator, Paul brings teams together to achieve planned objectives. Through inspirational and evocative leadership, Paul is able to enthuse and motivate others, achieving goals beyond expectation.  Paul has lived and travelled across the world.

The post How SDG2 Advocacy Hub is Galvanizing Chefs to Support Biodiversity appeared first on Food+Tech Connect.

The first 365 by Whole Foods store in Silver Lake | Source: Whole Foods Market

Every week we track the business, tech and investment trends in CPG, retail, restaurants, agriculture, cooking and health, so you don’t have to. Here are some of this week’s top headlines.

In retail news, Whole Foods has announced the end to its 365 format. The existing 12 stores will remain in business. Robomart announced that its self-driving vehicles will be used by Stop & Shop in the greater Boston area starting this spring. Giant grocery stores will replace robotic assistants at 172 of its stores. And finally, Postmates has raised $100 million ahead of its IPO.

In CPG news, Oatly is set to open a factory in New Jersey in late March or April to boost production by as much as 10 times. Laird Superfood, maker of plant-based creamers, has received $32 million in funding led by WeWork.

As part of biodiversity month here at Food+Tech Connect, we’ve launched an editorial series featuring interviews with over 45 CEOs, execs, farmers and investors.

Check out our weekly round-up of last week’s top food startup, tech and innovation news below or peruse the full newsletter here.

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1. Introducing Biodiversity: The Intersection of Taste & Sustainability

We interviewed 45+ CEOs, execs, farmers and investors about the role biodiversity plays in our food industry. Read this week’s published responses from Crop Trust, General Mills, Impossible Foods, Kuli Kuli, Row 7 and Sir Kensington’s,

2. The Future of Food Is Biodiverse

Biodiversity is crucial to the health of our food supply and it sits at the intersection of taste and sustainability. Biodiverse food is sustainable food.

3. Amazon-Owned Whole Foods Scraps Smaller 365 Store Expansion – Yahoo

Whole Foods CEO John Mackey told employees the grocery chain will not open new Whole Foods 365 stores anymore. The existing 12 stores will remain in business.

4. Oat Milk Buzz Triggers a Factory Expansion and New Brands From Big Food – Bloomberg

Oatly is set to open a plant in New Jersey. Other companies are jumping on the oat milk bandwagon amid signs that consumers are switching from almond milk in their coffee, including Califia Farms, PepsiCo’s Quaker Oats and Danone’s Silk.

5. New Diet Guidelines to Benefit People and the Planet: More Greens for All, Less Meat for Some – New York Times

The EAT-Lancet Commission on Food, Planet, Health brings together 30+ leading scientists to reach a scientific consensus that defines a healthy and sustainable diet.

6. Rethinking CPG

Join us to hear from some of the game-changing startups who are rethinking CPG at our January Food+Tech Meetup. Oatly, Sir Kensington’s and Four Sigmatic will do a deep dive into their business models, technology, challenges and lessons learned.

7. Forget Lab-Grown Meat and Blockchain. This Is the Future of Food – Food Business News

Mike Lee of Alpha Food Labs argues for a simpler solution — we need to create a more biodiverse food system to support a healthier planet and people.

8. A New $100M Investment Values Postmates at $1.85B Ahead of Its IPO – Recode

The investment includes participation from BlackRock, Tiger Global and other current shareholders. Postmates hopes to go public at the beginning of a wave of highly-touted tech offerings that is likely to include Uber.

9. Laird Superfood Seals $32M Funding Led by Tech Firm WeWork – Food Navigator

Funding will be used for product development and make small acquisitions of like-minded health food brands.

10. Robomart Drives Home a Deal with Stop & Shop for Mobile Commerce – The Spoon

Robomart announced that its self-driving mobile commerce vehicles will be used by Stop & Shop in the greater Boston area starting this spring. Vehicles will carry produce, meal kits and other convenience items directly to customer’s doors.

11. Giant Food Stores Will Replace Robotic Assistants at 172 Locations – The Washington Post

The robotic rollout is part of a plan by Giant’s parent company, Ahold Delhaize USA, to deploy about 500 robots to stores such as Giant, Martin’s and Stop & Shop.

12. Israeli Drone StartUp SeeTree Comes Out of Stealth with $15M Series A for Perm Crop Service – AgFunder

Hanaco Ventures led the round. SeeTree will use funding to further the development of its technology for citrus orchards.

13. France’s Sencrop Closes $10M Series A to Expand Agro-Weather Station Network – AgFunder

BpiFrance led the round. Funding will be used to accelerate Sencrop’s international development by expanding its network of weather stations, as well as its community of farmer users.

14. Pensa, AI-Enabled Drones Maker for Inventory Monitoring, Raises $5M – Xconomy

Signia Venture Partners led the funding, which will help Pensa do additional store trials.

15. Shake Shack Plans to Launch Food Trucks in February – Skift Table

Shake Shack’s food trucks are a smart play to boost company sales in the lucrative private events and catering space.

16. Women, Women of Color & Gender Non-Conforming Innovator Database

We created this open-source list to increase representation, support and investment in women, women of color & gender-nonconforming innovators in food. Join the list & help us spread the word using #womxninfood

Our newsletter is the absolute easiest way to stay on top of the emerging sector, so sign up for it today and never miss the latest food tech and innovation news and trends, Already signed up? Share the love with your friends and colleagues!

The post Whole Foods Shelves 365 Format, Oatly to Open New Jersey Plant + More appeared first on Food+Tech Connect.

Food+Tech Connect and The Future Market are hosting Biodiversity: The Intersection of Taste & Sustainability, an editorial series featuring interviews with over 45 leading food industry CEOs, executives, farmers, investors and researchers on the role of biodiversity in the food industry. See the full list of participants and read about why biodiversity in food is important here. We are also producing a biodiversity exhibit at The Winter Fancy Food Show, so please stop by to say hello.

Below, I speak with Erik Oberholtzer, co-founder and CEO of Tender Greens , a chef-led fast casual restaurant serving seasonal and responsibly-sourced food. Oberholtzer is on a mission to incorporate overlooked and underutilized ingredients into Tender Greens’ menus. The restaurant’s first step has been to add fonio, an African ancient grain, to the restaurant’s core menu in 2018. It is also working with seed banks, farmers who have plant scientists on team and Tender Greens chefs to plant rare seeds, provided by Crop Trust, and experiment with them in the kitchen. This year, Oberholtzer is collaborating with Crop Trust on the Food Forever Experience, hosting events in five countries and inviting global chefs to cook with diverse ingredients from the Rediscovered Food Initiatives list of 25 of ingredients to help shape future menus.

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Danielle Gould: Is biodiversity a priority for Tender Greens? If so, how and why?

Erik Oberholtzer: Yes, we look for plants that are nutrient dense, packed with flavor, provide new inspirations for our chefs and new ingredients to our guests. We search for ingredients that have been overlooked by the broader commercial food system. The use of new, diverse ingredients is important to local and global agriculture as climate change challenges historic varietals and practices. Our collaboration with the Food Forever Initiative and Crop Trust to achieve the UN’s SDG 2.5 by 2020 is a key driver. Our first action in 2018 has been to add fonio to our core menu. Fonio is at the edge of the global food system. We believe it could be the next quinoa based on culinary range, nutritional properties and importance as a drought resistant grain.

DG: How does Tender Greens define and think about biodiversity? What does an ideal biodiverse food system look like? How do you measure biodiversity, and when will we know when we’ve arrived at a “good” level of biodiversity?

EO: Sixty percent of the world’s food consumption comes from 4 crops- wheat, rice, soy and corn. These ingredients are at the heart of the industrialized food system that relies on mono cropping, GMO seed varieties that rely on petroleum inputs and pest prevention. A more diverse food system grounded in regenerative systems that are good for the soil, good for the body and good for the planet are key to a better, more resilient future. Any percentage shift away from the 60% is a measure of success. We have identified a list of 25 ingredients we are calling “rediscovered foods.” These are at the edge of the food system but significant enough to scale. Success in re-introducing these 25 would be a great success. After that we have many more so the process never ends.

DG: What is Tender Greens doing or planning to do to promote biodiversity?

EO: I will be leading a global network of chefs in five countries in 2019 on an awareness effort called the Food Forever Experience. We will challenge chefs to cook from a list of diverse ingredients to help shape future menus. They will also be asked to weave these ingredients into their menus to expose their audiences to these diverse ingredients. We are scheduled to host events in Peru, Chicago, Costa Rica, Rome and London in 2019. Tender Greens will introduce many of these ingredients onto our menu starting with fonio.

DG: What is the business case for promoting a more biodiverse food system?

EO: From a supply chain perspective the more robust our food system the better for business. As a brand in today’s world the more we demonstrate we are part of the solution to a broken food system than part of the problem the better for the brand’s image. As a cost measure, many of these ingredients are inexpensive and therefore potentially great for ingredient cost.

DG: What investments need to be made to create a more biodiverse food system?

EO: The key to a more biodiverse food system is a shift in consumer behavior. We need to manage our addiction to cheap processed food. Brands need to invest in educating the public on WHY and HOW they can vote with their dollars. Farmers need to transition from conventional methods to regenerative farming practices. Governments will need to shift their focus from industrial methods to those supporting a more diverse food system

DG: Does your average customer care about biodiversity today? Why should they care? How do you (or will you) get them to care?

EO: I do not believe most people understand the complexity of our food system and therefore do not care. They do care about climate change, world hunger, personal wellness and all of these things tie back to biodiversity. So they do care, they just don’t know yet. We can shift attention bit by bit. Meet people where they are at. I believe if we make diverse ingredients craveable, relatable and affordable we can change behavior.

DG: What are the greatest challenges and opportunities your organization faces for creating a more biodiverse agricultural system, and what are you doing to overcome or capture them?

EO: The biggest challenge is introducing unknown ingredients to compete with broadly accepted ingredients at a time when competition is intense. The other challenge is sourcing and scaling these ingredients if and when successful.

DG: How are you testing biodiverse ingredients on your menu? How are you or how do you plan to handle the sourcing and scaling of the ingredients that are successful?

EO: Bit by bit. We are beginning with fonio. It has been less challenging to source at scale, has great nutritional properties that consumers can embrace, is user friendly for the culinary team and plugs in nicely to the happy vegan on our main menu. We also are working on a rare seed project in partnership with the crop trust. The goal here is to work with seed banks, select farmers with plant scientists on team and our chefs to unlock the magic hidden in some of these vaults. It is a slow, low yield project but when unlocked offers a glimpse into the heritage and flavors of times long passed over. This is a project of curiosity where we invite select audiences in for a first look at ancient varietals. Many of these “first looks” will be events like food forever, WWF or intimate dinner parties in Brooklyn. More to come in 2019 but we hope to amplify the experience through shared social and collaborations with other chefs and farmers.

DG: What are some of the most important things restaurants can do to support biodiversity?

EO: Add new ingredients to the menu and talk about them in a way that people can absorb

DG: Are there certain products you would like to see more of in the food industry — either in foodservice or CPG — that would help promote a more biodiverse agricultural system?

We are starting with the list of 25 rediscovered foods.

DG: What is your vision for what a more biodiverse food system looks like in 10-15 years?

EO: We have moved beyond organic and now look at regenerative systems that rely on and celebrate the use of diverse ingredients. That our shelve and menus are filled with more ingredients in a decades time that we have not today heard of or tasted. That consumer demand drives the food system to plant with more diversity and relieve the impact on environment by agriculture. That some fields are rewilded to improve the health of ecosystems beyond those specific to agriculture.

DG: Anything else you want to share?

EO: This effort requires all stakeholders to work together in shaping a more diverse food system. At the heart of it all is the consumer. If consumers understand their role and act three times per day with meal choices that align with this vision we can achieve our goal of creating a more biodiverse food system. If we fail to change culture, we fail in this vision of the future.

Read all of the interviews here and learn more about Biodiversity at The Future Market.

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Erik Oberholtzer, Co-Founder and CEO of Tender Greens

Erik Oberholtzer co-founded Tender Greens in 2006 in Culver City, California, a chef driven, organic, fast-casual restaurant concept with locations in Los Angeles, San Francisco Bay Area, Orange County, San Diego and New York.

A professionally trained chef, Erik manages a growing team of talent along with some exciting new brands. He is the founder of the Tender Greens Sustainable Life Project, a program aimed at assisting at risk youth develop new skills and career intentions through structured culinary training and farm exposure. He is also co-founder of P. Balistreri Salumi Company, the first of their unique chef legacy companies he has helped incubate and bring to market through Tender Greens.

Erik earned his undergraduate degree in Psychology at Temple University in Pennsylvania and a degree in Culinary Arts at Johnson & Wales in Providence, Rhode Island.

The post Why Tender Greens is Putting Rediscovered Foods on The Menu appeared first on Food+Tech Connect.

Food+Tech Connect and The Future Market are hosting Biodiversity: The Intersection of Taste & Sustainability, an editorial series featuring interviews with over 45 leading food industry CEOs, executives, farmers, investors and researchers on the role of biodiversity in the food industry. Read all of the interviews here. 

The future of food is a biodiverse, sitting at the intersection of taste and sustainability. Biodiversity ensures the food industry can not only delight eaters with new and exciting foods from a diverse set of cultures, but also safeguard our ecosystems and the genetic diversity required to ensure crops can evolve to better face threats like pests and disease, climate change and extreme weather. Preserving those genetics means saving as many seed varieties as possible, diversifying what we plant in the field and what we eat on our plates. 

Below, we speak with Charlotte Douglas, COO of Row 7 Seed Company, about the importance of diversifying our seed varieties and the role seeds and chefs play in shaping what we eat. Built by chef Dan Barber, breeder Michael Mazourek, and seedsman Matthew Goldfarb, Row 7 collaborates with chefs and breeders to develop, promote and sell new, flavorful vegetable and grain varieties.

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Danielle Gould: Is biodiversity a priority for Row 7? If so, how and why?

Charlotte Douglas: Row 7 was created as an engine for diversity, pairing plant breeders and chefs in the development of new varieties of vegetables and grains. But if biodiversity is the end goal, it is also the means. Because all plant breeding depends on a reservoir of genetic diversity that is increasingly under threat. Protecting biodiversity isn’t just about stewarding our landscapes and cultural heritage—it’s fundamental to creating varieties—and a food system—that will meet the challenges of the future.

DG: How does Row 7 define and think about biodiversity? What does an ideal biodiverse food system look like?

CD: For Row 7, the excitement is not just in celebrating the varieties of the past, but in continuing to innovate and iterate, supporting new discoveries in the field and kitchen. I think there’s something optimistic about this idea that humans have the ability to add rather than subtract diversity.

DG: What is Row 7 doing or planning to do to promote biodiversity?

CD: Throughout history, people have depended on the improvement of our seeds. We want to support that continued evolution and protect seeds as a publicly accessible resource. That means no genetically modified seeds, and no utility patents that would restrict research and impede growers’ right to save seeds.

DG: What is the business case for promoting a more biodiverse food system?

CD: In some ways, the case has been made for us, because we can see the costs of our industrialized food system. More than that, it’s failed to deliver the kind of food people want: tasty and nutritious, and with a sense of place. Dialing back to the seed — and to biodiversity — is the only way to meet those demands for the future.

DG: What investments need to be made to create a more biodiverse food system?

CD: I think back to the initial conversation between our co-founders chef Dan Barber and vegetable breeder Michael Mazourek almost nine years ago. For Dan, it was this understanding that plant breeders are, in a way, just like chefs: writing recipes that determine how ingredients will perform in the field and kitchen. And for Michael, I think it was a validation that flavor should play a role in that process.

These days, most breeders are asked to breed for the largest market, which means breeding for yield, uniformity and shelf life and evaluating varieties within the context of chemical inputs. If we want to support the right kind of diversity for the future, we have to incentivize breeders to select for that system.

DG: How might we get chefs and farmers to care about biodiversity? How might we get consumers to care about biodiversity?

CD: Chefs and farmers are natural advocates for this work, because they see the correspondence between diversity and flavor. I think the challenge—and the opportunity—isn’t just how you get chefs and farmers to care, but also how you get them to take part in biodiversity. When our team was coming together to form Row 7, our hope was to create a participatory network of chefs, breeders and growers who could experiment with new varieties to see how they adapt for different microclimates and cuisines, and also collaborate on new breeding projects. It’s been amazing to see that community take root this year. The goal is to invite everyone to become stakeholders in the evolution of these ingredients—and in a wider conversation around where our food comes from.

DG: What are the greatest challenges and opportunities Row 7 faces for creating a more biodiverse system? What are you doing to overcome or capture them?

CD: Today, three chemical companies control 60 percent of the global seed market. Competing with that scale of consolidation can feel a little David and Goliath-esque. We’re lucky to work with chefs and partners who use their influence to activate change within the mainstream food industry.

DG: How are you or how do you plan to handle the sourcing and scaling of the ingredients?

CD: I think when you say “breeding for flavor” you risk the assumption that this work is intended for white tablecloth restaurants. But this is what people have been doing for thousands of years: selecting the most productive and delicious plants. Working with some incredible plant breeders around the country, we’ve seen that you don’t need to choose between flavor and resilience in the field. In organic systems, they’re often one and the same. By investing in organic plant breeding and seed production, we hope to make these ingredients more accessible to everyone.

DG: What are some of the most important things food manufacturers, retailers, chefs and other key actors across the food supply chain can do to support biodiverse agriculture?

CD: We’ve all seen the incredible success of the farm-to-table movement in creating a consciousness around where our food comes from. Now we’re seeing the need to broaden the conversation and recognize the role that seeds play in shaping what—and how—we grow and eat.

DG: Are there certain products you would like to see more of in the food industry — either in foodservice or CPG — that would help promote a more biodiverse agricultural system?

CD: I love the idea of products that celebrate varieties that are unique to different regions. In a food system that tends to be one size fits all, we need to create a market for those ingredients and support the communities that participated in their development.

DG: What is your vision for what a more biodiverse food system looks like in 10-15 years?

CD: It’s a vision of regionality: crops and cuisines that meet the specific needs of a place. That’s not a new idea; it’s how almost all traditional food cultures were built.

Read all of the interviews here and learn more about Biodiversity at The Future Market.

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Charlotte Douglas, COO at Row 7 Seed Company

Charlotte Douglas is a founding member and Chief Operating Officer of Row 7 Seed Company.  Row 7 works alongside chefs and plant breeders to create, trial and distribute delicious new plant varieties that make an impact in the soil and at the table.

The post Row 7 on Diversifying Our Seeds appeared first on Food+Tech Connect.

The food industry has increasingly prioritized sustainability, as eaters care more about where and how our food is produced, as well as who produces it. There is even growing interest around soil health and the potential for agriculture to regenerate the health of the planet, not just sustain the status quo. There has been far less attention, however, to the diversity of what’s being grown.

About 75 percent of the world’s food comes from just 12 plants and 5 animal species. Almost half of our plant-derived calories come from just three foods: wheat, corn and rice. While estimates vary, it is believed that there are over 30,000 edible plants, and we only eat 150 of them. Thirty percent of livestock breeds are at risk of extinction, and six breeds are being lost each month.

This concentration around just a few food sources puts our food system at risk, as evidenced by the story of the Cavendish Banana and The Irish Potato Famine. It also robs eaters of awesome, nutrient dense foods and flavor experiences.

How did we get here? Historically, the food industry prioritized commoditization, mass yield, and uniformity over flavor, nutrition, and sustainability. As a result, we are losing plant and animal species at an alarming rate, while diet-related disease, obesity, and micronutrient deficiencies are on the rise.

Now, we as an industry have a chance and a responsibility to make things right.

The Future of Food is Biodiverse: Where Flavor and Sustainability Meet

Building a food industry that promotes agrobiodiversity – the variety and variability of plants, animals, microorganisms and biocultural systems linked to agriculture and food – makes our food system more sustainable and allows us to delight eaters with new and exciting foods from a diverse set of cultures.

As an industry, agrobiodiversity ensures supply chain resiliency and food security by safeguarding the genetic material needed to ensure crops can evolve in the face of pests and disease, climate change and extreme weather. A biodiverse food system also supports economic development, enables greater dietary diversity, which leads to better health, and helps preserve cultural traditions, techniques, and flavors.

39 Industry Leaders Explore Biodiversity in Food

Intellectually, you might agree with our premise that the future of food is biodiverse, but what does it mean in practice?

To help us understand what a biodiverse food industry looks like, we’ve partnered with The Future Market to host an editorial series from January 7-31 inviting leading CEOs, executives, farmers, investors and researchers to share insight into their thoughts and strategies for supporting biodiversity in food. Check out our incredible list of contributors below and read all of the interviews here.

The Future Market at Fancy Food Show

The Future Market is producing a Biodiversity Exhibit at The Winter Fancy Food Show January 13-15. The exhibit offers a deep dive into biodiversity in food and explores what a more biodiverse grocery aisle might look like. It will feature 9 new concept products, 26 biodiverse crop spotlights, and a digital shopping experience filled with concept product ideas for the next 5-25 years. See content from the exhibit and learn more here. We hope to see you there!

Editorial Series Contributors:

Read all of the published interviews here.

• Aerofarms – Marc Oshima, Co-Founder & CMO
• Applegate – Gina Asoudegan, Vice President, Mission and Innovation
• Back to the Roots – Nikhil Arora and Alejandro Vélez Ramírez, Co-Founders
• Believe in Bambara – Tamara Cohen, Co-Founder & Chief Commercial Officer
• Bowery Farming – Susan McIsaac, Head of Agricultural Sciences
• Burlap & Barrel – Ethan Frisch, CEO
• Crops For The Future – Professor Sayed Azam-Ali, CEO
• Dig Inn – Larry Tse, Farm Manager, and Taylor Lanzet, Director of Supply & Sustainability 
• Edenworks – Jason Green, Co-Founder & CEO
• Farm.One – Rob Laing, Founder & CEO
• Food Systems 6 – Renske Lynde, Co-Founder & Managing Director
• Food Tank – Danielle Nierenberg, President
• FoodShot Global – Victor Friedberg, Chairman and Founder
• General Mills, Natural & Organic Operating Unit – Shauna J. Sadowski, Head of Sustainability
• Global Crop Diversity Trust – Marie Haga, Executive Director
• GODAN – Andre Laperriere, Executive Director
• Gotham Greens – Viraj Puri, CEO
• Health Warrior – Casey Emmett, Director of Strategic Sales
• Impossible Foods – Pat Brown, Founder & CEO 
• Institute for the Future – Sarah Smith, Research Director, Food Futures Lab
• KAIBAE – Barbara Berger Maes, Dr. Luc Maes & Thomas Cole, Co-Founders
• Kuli Kuli – Lisa Curtis, Founder & CEO
• La Quercia – Herb Eckhouse, Co-Founder
• Lexicon of Sustainability – Douglas Gayeton, Director
• MAD – Melina Shannon-DiPietro, Executive Director 
• Masumoto Family Farm – Nikiko Masumoto, Farmer, Artist, Community Leader
• National Young Farmers Coalition – Lindsey Shute, Executive Director & Co-Founder
• Rebbl – Sheryl O’Loughlin, CEO 
• rePlant Capital – Robyn O’Brien, VP
• Row 7 Seed Company – Charlotte Douglas, COO
• SDG 2 Advocacy Hub – Paul Newnham, Director
• Sir Kensington’s – Rebecca Gildiner, Impact Strategy Manager
• Slow Food USA – Richard McCarthy, Executive Director
• Starbucks – Michelle Burns, Senior Vice President, Global Coffee & Tea
• Sweetgreen – Nicolas Jammet, Co-Founder & Chief Concept Officer
• Swette Center for Sustainable Food Systems at Arizona State University – Kathleen Merrigan, Executive Director
• Tender Greens – Erik Oberholtzer, CEO
• Thrive Market –  Nick Green, Co-Founder & CEO
• Wholesome Wave – Michel Nishan, Chef, Author, Food Equity Advocate, Founder & CEO
• Yolele – Philip Teverow, Co-Founder & CEO 

The post Introducing Biodiversity: The Intersection of Taste & Sustainability appeared first on Food+Tech Connect.

Inspired by 1960s Los Angeles, west~bourne is an accidentally vegetarian, all-day café with a social mission. A portion of every purchase made at its SoHo location benefits the poverty-fighting Robin Hood Foundation to fund hospitality training for youth in its community through its neighboring nonprofit, The Door, where the restaurant hires from to build its team. Its founder Camilla Marcus joined us at our Fail Friday this past June to share her stories of failure and lessons learned.

Camilla was formerly the Director of Business Development for Union Square Hospitality Group and worked in real estate investing for Colony Capital and CIM Group. With her background in business development, law and investing, Camilla initially felt confident going into her first independent venture as a restauranteur. She scouted her first location right away, and quickly learned of the legal barriers that would carry on with her through her search for a home for west~bourne.

The process ended up taking a year, and with two failed locations and painful legal costs behind her, Camilla learned her biggest lesson as an entrepreneur: Failure is the point when you have to decide — is this really what I want to do? Getting over that hurdle is what continues to push you forward.

Check out more Fail Friday videos here.

Huge thanks to our Fail Friday partners Force Brands and Kickstarter.

The post West~bourne’s Camilla Marcus on Failure to Launch appeared first on Food+Tech Connect.

The #MeToo movement unveiled a crisis in the hospitality industry. But this is not a new story, and the problems go far beyond harassment. Women in the hospitality industry have less access to capital, less pay and less media coverage. Women restaurant workers experience poverty at nearly one and one third the rate of their male counterparts. This has got to change.

Women in Hospitality United (WiHU) was born of the #MeToo movement and the belief that there is an urgent need for evolution in the hospitality industry. Our mission is to develop solutions and to provide policies that set new standards for equity, accountability, and transparency in the industry.

On September 24th, at the Wythe Hotel in Brooklyn, Women in Hospitality United is hosting Solution Sprint, a one-day, crowdsourced event to convene individuals from across the food space to tackle some of the most pressing gender challenges facing the hospitality industry. Modeled after a hackathon, this first of its kind initiative for the hospitality industry will drive resources, expertise and attention to resolving community-identified challenges.

Individuals, groups or organizations with ideas for improving workplace culture in the hospitality space are encouraged to apply.  Selected projects will receive the opportunity to collaborate with a group of experts for a one-day intensive workshopping of new initiatives.

The applications deadline is August 31.  To learn more and apply visit their website www.WomeninHospitalityUnited.org.  

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About The Authors:
Founded by three women deep in the New York food industry trenches — Elizabeth Meltz (Dig Inn), Liz Murray (The Marlow Collective) and Erin Fairbanks (GROUT Consulting) — Women in Hospitality United (WiHU) is a new organization born from the #metoo movement and the urgent need for evolution in the hospitality industry.
 
 
 
 

The post Can Tech Solve the Hospitality Industry’s Gender Problem? appeared first on Food+Tech Connect.

In tandem with the launch of the Food+Tech Job Board, we are thrilled to launch the Food Startup Growth Series. This series will give you an inside look at the strategies, challenges and best practices of fast-growing food startups.

For busy workers, finding a lunch spot that can deliver a quick and satisfying experience can be challenging. For those who want to enjoy a sit-down restaurant but are tight on time, waiting for a table and ordering can be stressful. By allowing diners to pre-book, pre-order and pre-pay for their meals, Allset works with restaurants to create an efficient and enjoyable experience in under 30 minutes.

Founder and CEO Stat Matviyenko launched Allset in 2015. Based in San Francisco, the company has 20 employees, 12 of which are located in Ukraine. Allset has raised $3.35 million through two seed rounds. SMRK VC Fund and private investor Alexander Chernyak led the initial round in 2015.  Compound leading the second round in 2016. FJ Labs, Metaphoric Ventures, Andreesen Horowitz also invested. Allset is currently available at over 400 restaurants in six different cities. Each month, a new city is launched and the customer base grows by 30 percent. By 2018, Allset is expected to have partner restaurants in every major U.S. city and London.

I spoke with Stas managing a company with operations on two different continents, what his immediate and future growth goals are and what are the biggest obstacles he’s faced thus far. He also told me what he values in an employee (he’s hiring!) and what skills team members of Allset can expect to gain.

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Danielle Gould: Why did you start Allset?

Stas Matviyenko: Our team has 5 years of expertise in building solutions for restaurants. We built a mobile loyalty program called Advice Wallet with 500+ restaurants in 4 countries, and a mobile payment app called Settle – the first in Eastern Europe. These two services formed the basis for Allset.

Allset was created to make lunch for our team easier and faster at nearby restaurants. How it works: you book a table and order your meal before you arrive at the restaurant. Upon arrival, the restaurant seats and serves you immediately. The check is paid, so you can leave when you want. It’s that simple.

Every time we dined out with Allset, we felt like VIP guests. We realized that people would love to skip the wait at restaurants and focus on amazing dining experiences, every day. Eventually, Allset has become the favorite way to dine out for thousands of busy professionals across the United States.

DG: What’s innovative about Allset? What differentiates it from its competitors?

SM: Allset is the only service that allows you to both book a table and order you meal before you arrive at the restaurant. Nobody does the same. Unlike table booking services and takeout services, Allset gives diners both the speed of takeout with the comfort of dine-in.

DG: What kind of growth has Allset seen over the last year? What has driven that growth?

SM: Today we serve 13,000+ orders monthly at 400+ restaurants in 6 cities: SF, NYC, Palo Alto, Chicago, Boston, and Austin. Our customer base is growing 30 percent monthly; we have a 70 percent retention rate. We’re launching a new city every month. We will have 14 areas in total until the end of the year: SF, Oakland, Palo Alto, San Jose, Manhattan, Brooklyn, New Jersey, Chicago, Boston, Austin, Seattle, Philadelphia, San Diego, and Los Angeles. Our success is the product of hard work, persistence, and trust in what we do.

DG: What are your growth goals for the next 12-24 months, and how do you plan to achieve those goals?

SM: Seattle will be officially launched in May. After that, we will expand to Philadelphia, San Jose, Los Angeles, and San Diego. By the end of 2017, we will have 14 areas in total with 1,000 partner restaurants. By the end of 2018, we’re planning to launch Allset in all big cities in the United States and serve 100,000 diners monthly. In 2018 we plan to launch our first city in Europe – London. Allset will completely expand beyond weekday lunches and will be serving dinners and brunches as well.

DG: What have been your biggest obstacles to growth and scale? How have you overcome them?

SM: Our biggest challenge right now is to meet the growing user demand for more restaurants to be added to Allset. We sign up and train restaurants online without being physically present in new cities. This allows us to grow really fast. Eventually, when we grow up to thousands of participating restaurants per city, we believe Allset can do to in-restaurant dining what Uber did to transportation and Airbnb did to hospitality.

DG: What does your team look like? How did you make those first hires?

SM: The team in the United States: Founders: Stas Matviyenko – CEO, Anna Polishchuk – COO, Pavlo Tiron – CTO, Dimitri Nikulin – CCO, plus Customer Success and Sales reps. The team in Ukraine: R&D, Growth and Marketing teams. Stas Matviyenko and Anna Polishchuk are experienced entrepreneurs who have been working together for 6 years. Pavlo Tiron, CTO, has 7 years experience in building high-quality products and leading dev teams. Dimitri joined the team 4 years ago and now lead the content and PR sides of Allset. Each one of founders plays a key role and possesses the knowledge, experience, and skills that help push the company forward. All hiring of employees in the company is done entirely through posting jobs on the internet: AngelList, LinkedIn, Craigslist, Indeed, Food+Tech Connect, and social media.

DG: What does your company culture look like? How have you built your company culture?

SM: Allset is a San Francisco-based company of technology experts and forward thinkers with a focus on improving the restaurant dining experience. Everything we do, we’re committed to helping people live enjoyable and productive lives.

Allset is all about technology and hospitality. On the one hand, we have a strong R&D team headed by experienced technology entrepreneurs. On the other hand, many former hosts, servers, and restaurant operators are working in our company. Moreover, to understand the restaurant industry better, our founders have co-founded a bar. We had an unused space in our office building, and we decided to do something interesting and maximize our return from the rent. We invited to the project our co-minded friends and started the bar from scratch. It was the first contemporary whiskey bar in Kyiv, Ukraine. It was also the playground for testing all our services.

From developers and designers to sales and founders, we’re spending a lot of time as regular diners. We dine out a lot because we love restaurants and food. This helps us better understand and more effectively address our customers needs as well as build our brand around cutting edge technology and amazing dining experiences.

DG: How are you preserving your company culture as you scale up?

SM: People are everything in business. It’s always worth the extra effort to find the right employees and to build your team with professionals who want to contribute with their time, skills and passion. They must share the same views and believe in your company’s mission. We put a lot of time and effort in recruiting people – from the very beginning when you review a resume, and up to the moment when you help a newcomer adapt to the team environment and processes. We’re thankful to have our great team today, and we’re always eager to make new connections.

DG: What will someone who works for you be able to add to their resume?

SM: Work at the company of technology experts and forward thinkers challenging the status quo in the hospitality industry and changing the way people dine at restaurants.

DG: What job(s) are you hiring for, and how will those positions help drive growth in your company?

SM: Designers, Software Engineers, Marketing and Operations Specialists, Sales Reps, and more.

DG: What kind of training do you offer for new employees who may be switching from other industries or who are just out of school?

SM: We mostly hire people with relevant experience from the restaurant and hospitality industry and food and tech startups. We have cheat sheets and training for young professionals who just finished school. It’s not rocket science and we always help new people learn and adapt.

DG: What’s your favorite interview question?

SM: Have you tried Allset?

DG: Why do you think it’s exciting to be working in food right now?

SM: We can talk from the restaurant tech standpoint as we work closely with the hospitality industry. It’s a great opportunity for everyone to support innovation, serve amazing people and change their lives for the better.

Check out exciting food tech, design, management, operations, development and food science positions at Food+Tech Jobs.

The post Wait-Free Dining App Allset is Growing 30% MOM appeared first on Food+Tech Connect.

It seems like every day we read about another food startup scaling back or closing shop. In many cases, these businesses have great products or services. But traditional investors, bound by traditional return expectations, refuse to wait out the turbulence inherent in the early stages of a food startup.

When I launched my office catering business, Ox Verte, I knew our biggest challenge would be to create a scalable model that could achieve attractive unit economics early on. Food businesses require lots of iteration, over a period of time. That kind of iteration requires either very patient, understanding investors or no investors at all. I chose no investors, but this meant that our cash position had to be self-sustaining from the start.

We launched in February 2015 and today, two years later, we are still a very small business—a business that most of my business school friends would find pretty “uncool” compared to most startups. Make no mistake – we have grand ambitions, but we don’t call ourselves the Uber of anything, and we don’t talk about hockey sticks when we describe our growth. That said, we’ve served over 50,000 New Yorkers since we launched and we are steadily growing. Also, we are profitable—and I don’t mean a weird, doctored-up version of profitability.

The modest but genuine success we’ve achieved so far is the result of a few key Do’s and Don’ts we’ve adopted:

First, we focus on Unit Economics every single day. If the business model isn’t designed around being profitable, it will be difficult to ever get there. At Ox, we don’t believe margins magically fall in line if your sales are good. If we subsidize our unit economics in any way, then we are tricking ourselves.  

To build Ox’s business model, we asked: What are the most profitable fast-casual concepts? What kind of unit economics and EBITDA margins do they have? Then we said: Okay, let’s raise the bar a little and design an office catering model that can do better. We used an extremely simple spreadsheet and created our menu and our team around it. One concrete result of that exercise is our group size. By serving a minimum of 10 people we can more easily cover our costs. As a result, from Day 1, every lunch we’ve delivered has contributed to the bottom line.

Because we built the business around unit economics, we always have a blueprint to follow. We know how much we can spend on packaging and food, which simplifies our daily decision making process.

Second, we keep our menu super simple. Every single option and variation adds a layer of complexity, which often outweighs the value you are adding to the consumer. Chipotle taught every food-preneur the enormous potential of a simple menu. At Ox, we have one menu that changes seasonally. Every office across Manhattan receives that same menu, whether they have 10 people or 600. This allows us to be efficient with our labor and to keep our quality consistent. We can and will add new menus and product lines when the time is right, but they will all be as simple as this one.

Also, we don’t confuse raising money with earning money. Sometimes it appears that raising money is more important than actually earning money. Some people find a $10 million Series A more exciting than $500,000 in real EBITDA. At Ox, we feel it’s important to wait to raise money until you know what to do with it. And the right partners will agree with that approach.

We don’t try to be too many things. If you are a food business, be a food business. If you are a logistics business, be a logistics business. Don’t try to be too many things at once. Forge partnerships or outsource.

At Ox, we are trying to (1) make food and (2) create a trusted brand. We use technology but we don’t build it. We won’t create an algorithm to reinvent urban logistics, but maybe we’ll partner with someone who has. There are so many smart people doing all of these things—in food you have to do fewer things, but better. I promise that will keep you busy enough.

Finally, we build everything to scale. If you are looking to achieve big things, you have to build your business to scale, even when you are tiny. But never, ever start scaling until you know you can profit. At Ox, I often get asked about competitive pressure, but the truth is that there is lots of room in food. There isn’t one winner, and I don’t believe you have to sprint into new markets before you are ready.

While we are still in our infancy, I believe our “unsexy” approach to growth at Ox Verte will serve us well. Either way, we promise transparency, so we can all keep learning together. We need change in the food industry—there is no more room for secrets.

Learn more about Ox Verte’s philosophy and catering options here. 

The post How Office Catering Startup Ox Verte Bootstrapped Its Way to Profitability appeared first on Food+Tech Connect.

In tandem with the launch of the Food+Tech Job Board, we are thrilled to launch the Food Startup Growth Series. This series will give you an inside look at the strategies, challenges and best practices of fast-growing food startups.

The $11 billion U.S. food delivery market is crowded and fast-growing. Mealmade, a San Francisco-based meal delivery startup, is differentiating itself by offering healthy meals for people with specialized diets, like gluten-free, paleo, autoimmune protocol and vegan. Delivery is available for lunch and dinner, featuring entrees like Chicken Tikka Masala and Carnitas Tacos. All of its meals are cooked to order in the company’s kitchen using 100 percent gluten, soy and dairy-free ingredients. Furthermore, its proteins are all grass-fed, free-range or sustainably-caught.

Since launching in October 2015, Mealmade seen 15 to 20 percent growth month-over-month. Now it’s in the process of launching an app, expanding delivery service to the weekends and opening a brick-and-mortar retail space for pick-up and counter service.

I spoke with founder Jeff Nobbs to learn more about why Mealmade is launching a brick-and-mortar space, how he’s able to offer meals at an affordable price-point and what kinds of employees make a great fit.

Mealmade is hiring a full-stack marketer here and spread the word!
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Sari Kamin:  What’s keeping your team busy right now?

Jeff Nobbs: Mealmade is moving into a new restaurant space in March, with a brick and mortar “traditional” retail presence. Customers can order delivery through our website (or soon-to-launch app) or walk-in and pickup their order, or even order at the front counter and dine in! Between the new space and developing our mobile app, we’ve been busy!

SK: What are your growth goals for the next 12-24 months, and how do you plan to achieve those goals?

JN: We’ve grown 15-20 percent per month since launching and plan to continue that growth. Almost all of our growth to date as been through word of mouth. With the addition to scalable online advertising, a mobile app, weekend deliveries (we currently only open on weekdays), and a brick-and-mortar presence, we plan to accelerate our growth.

SK: What is the motivation for opening a brick and mortar space? How does this set you apart from other food delivery services?

JN: Nothing about our mission revolves around delivery, but it’s our current strategy. Our mission is about getting healthier better food into the hands of more people so delivery was a really easy to way to start. Brick and mortar is the next step along with catering and we’re getting ready to launch both. We’ve had a lot of customers let us know that they don’t order lunch from us because their office provides catering, and we want to be there for them.

SK: What does your company culture look like?

JN: We think company culture is the result of the people we hire. We look for ambitious, intelligent people who are passionate about healthy eating and living, and embrace technology. As a result of building around these premises, our culture is one that values open communication, transparency, respect and hard work.

SK: How are you preserving your company culture as you scale up?

JN: By defining our values, and constantly repeating them:

1. We always ask, “What would delight the customer?”
2. We exceed expectations.
3. Everything we do is as good as our food.
4. We treat each other with respect, openness, honesty, and aren’t afraid to give feedback.
5. We solve problems.

SK: What do you know now that you wish you would have known when you started scaling your company? What are the biggest challenges and lessons learned as you’ve grown your company?

JN: Operations are everything in this business. We should have started documenting everything we do as a company, earlier. Our processes drive our business. When one process doesn’t happen or happens incorrectly, it leads to a domino effect of other things going wrong. Having so many moving parts is challenging, but also allows us to do a lot with a little when processes are well defined.

SK: Buying free-range, sustainably sourced, and grass-fed ingredients can be cost-prohibitive. How do you manage to keep your price point so low?

JN: If our food were served in a dine-in restaurant it would be 2 to 3 times the price. We work really hard with distributors and we didn’t need to pay for an expensive retail location to begin with. We also don’t have a full-time wait staff that we are paying salaries for so we’re able to decrease the price for customers. But the main difference is our average order value. From the beginning, we charged $5 for delivery and that, coupled with the quality of our food, incentivizes people to order more. Our average order is almost $40. Our food costs are a little higher but we make up for that with almost everything else.

SK: What will someone who works for you be able to add to their resume?

JN:  It will invariably start with “I wear a lot of hats…”

SK: What kind of training do you offer for new employees who may be switching from other industries or who are just out of school?

JN: We detail out every process that drives our company. These processes are documented and act as the foundation for learning the ins and outs of working at Mealmade. Besides these processes, a week of training and the new employee is ready to start contributing!

SK: What’s your favorite interview question?

JN: What’s your most controversial belief?

SK: What positions are you hiring for?

JN: We are looking for a full-stack marketer to lead all aspects of marketing and accelerate our growth.

SK: Your menu offerings change daily. What is your menu planning process like?

JN: Every day we rotate in between 2-5 new items and rotate out old items so over the course of a week and a half our menu completely changes. Our chef and I look at what’s in season and we listen to what customers say they like. We are doing paleo in a way that’s not boring. It’s never going to be just chicken breast and steamed vegetables. We’ll do a bunch of R&D around things that sound good to us, like French toast. It keeps things really interesting and fun.

SK: Why do you think it’s exciting to be working in food right now?

JN: You are what you eat. We’re defining what people are and how they feel. We’re in the midst of a food revolution and we want to play a role in how the future of food is defined.

SK: Is there anything else you want us to know about MealMade that we haven’t covered?

JN: Everyone on our team is obsessed with healthy food and really cares deeply about sustainability. The fact that we all care so much about the mission of the company is what has allowed us to grow very quickly. We are our customers so we can think about what we want to provide as a company and that’s generally what our customers want too.

Check out more exciting food tech, design, management, operations, development and food science positions on our new job board  Food+Tech Jobs.

The post Paleo Meal Delivery Service Mealmade Launches Brick-and-Mortar Outpost appeared first on Food+Tech Connect.

In tandem with the launch of the Food+Tech Job Board, we are thrilled to launch the Food Startup Growth Series. This series will give you an inside look at the strategies, challenges and best practices of fast-growing food startups and organizations.

Many foodservice operators are benefiting from the halo effect of sustainability, but it’s hard to tell how truthful their sustainability claims really are. Similar to what LEED certification did for the building industry, United States Healthful Food Council (USHFC) is bringing transparency and guidance to the food industry by creating market-based incentives, programs and tools to increase the profitability of healthy, sustainable food.

The non-profit offers three programs: recipe analysis and menu labeling, nutrition consulting services and a certification program. Through its Responsible Epicurean and Agricultural Leadership Certification Program (REAL), it partners with third party registered dietitians to certify that operators’ menus, operations and supply chains are healthful and sustainable. For operators, REAL Certification offers a great marketing tool, as well as access to products from a network of certified ingredients suppliers at a discount. To date, there are 500 foodservice operations have received REAL Certification, including Restaurant Nora, Chipotle’s Shophouse, Bare Burger, Google, Stanford University and Boulder Valley School District.

USHFC is the brainchild of Lawrence Williams, an entrepreneur with a long history of tackling big challenges. Prior to USHFC, he worked with Elon Must to develop a collaboration between SpaceX and NASA to develop a domestic commercial crew and cargo for space travel. He also worked with Craig McCaw and Bill Gates’ Teledesic to negotiate with the FCC to make broadband access ubiquitous through the use of low-Earth orbiting satellites.

Lawrence’s experience in the tech world has always informed how he operates USHFC. Creating a new market and a new certification is no easy feat, but will perseverance USHFC has gotten some of the most reputable brands on board. Now, like any good entrepreneur, Lawrence realizes that its going to take a different skill set to scale the organization, so he is bringing on a new CEO.

I spoke with Lawrence about the biggest challenges he’s faced in scaling, how he’s treated his non-profit more like a startup and how new leadership will impact the direction of EatReal.

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Danielle Gould: What’s keeping your team busy right now?

Lawrence Williams: We are currently in the process of finalizing and rolling out our updated certification standards, which we’re calling REAL 3.0. For the first time, this new certification will include numerous levels of certification (REAL, Silver, Gold and Platinum), which will allow for a deeper dive on some of the more complicated issues. We are also hosting the Eat REAL Roundtable and Eat REAL Kitchen Sausalito next week, where we will gather industry and NGO leaders for a two-day working group to weigh in and finalize the standards. 

DG: What are your growth goals for the next 12-24 months, and how do you plan to achieve those goals?

LW: This is an exciting time for EatREAL! We just completed a merger with another nonprofit (The Institute for Responsible Nutrition), and are working through incorporating their board and leadership team into our organization, as well as the creation of a scientific advisory board to inform our standards. We are also in the final stages of hiring on a new CEO, who will be able to step in and scale our certification program to meet our growing demands. In the next year or two, we are going to work on expanding our consumer-facing brand and expand our footprint with the REAL 3.0.

DG: What does your team look like?

LW: We are a small and self-motivated team distributed between Washington, DC, Nashville, Chicago and San Francisco, supported by a nationwide network of registered dietitians. With fewer than ten people running a nationwide certification program, everyone here wears many hats.

DG: What does your company culture look like? How have you built your company culture?

LW: We have tried hard to act and operate more like a scrappy startup than a typical not-for-profit organization. Even though we are a non-profit, we try to function as a mission-driven business, not a charity.

DG: How are you preserving your company culture as you scale up?

LW: We spend a lot of time making sure we bring in the right cultural fit and we have weekly all-team meetings.

DG: What do you know now that you wish you would have known when you started scaling your company? What are the biggest challenges and lessons learned as you’ve grown your company?

LW: Externally, the biggest challenge in scaling has been working with the foodservice industry, which can be challenging because generally speaking the hours are very long and margins quite small.

DG: What will someone who works for you be able to add to their resume?

LW: Working with EatREAL to help transform our food system provides an opportunity to make a make a huge difference on what is probably the issue of our time. Food is integrally linked to the health of all people and the planet.  

DG: What job(s) are you hiring for, and how will those positions help drive growth in your company?

LW: We are currently hiring a new CEO, which, as you might imagine, is quite pivotal for the development of the organization.  This new leadership will determine the direction of EatREAL in the coming years – for a non-profit at this stage in its lifecycle, the input of our new CEO has the clout to fundamentally influence our brand recognition within the marketplace and to consumers.

DG: What kind of training do you offer for new employees who may be switching from other industries or who are just out of school?

LW: Working for EatREAL offers an opportunity to dive into the flow of an active and expanding organization while still being supported by your teammates.  Here, a new hire or a new graduate will be able to explore a variety of avenues within the nonprofit world in order to discover which of their areas of interest are the most applicable and enjoyable in practice.   

DG: What’s your favorite interview question?

LW: What motivates you to want to join our team?

DG: Why do you think it’s exciting to be working in food right now?

LW: There is no denying that food is a hot-button issue across the board right now.  It is a dynamic time to be involved in the industry as we are confronted daily with new developments, policies, science, and research.  What’s more is that food culture is inextricably linked to a variety of different issues and industries – whether on the side of social dialogue around such topics as race, socioeconomic status, and disease, or around industries such as distribution, education, and technology. As such a central component to our daily lives, food serves as an intellectual and ideological hub for people from many backgrounds and industries to converge and exchange ideas and information.

Check out exciting food tech, design, management, operations, development and food science positions at Food+Tech Jobs.

The post Eat REAL Creates Market-Based Incentives For Healthy, Sustainable Food appeared first on Food+Tech Connect.