The 6th Annual Chicago Food Policy Summit

AKA Family Farmed Expo Friday Recap

Friday could reasonably have been termed the “everything insiders” day, because it still wasn’t geared toward the general public (aka: me), but there was a lot more going on. It wasn’t all about money, Friday had a “trade show track” for farmers and restaurateurs, a “school food track” with two sets of discussions going, and a “food policy track”. All of this was under the banner of “The 6 th Annual Chicago Food Policy Summit.”

So, what did the summit bring? For me, a lot of focus on food access, and the opportunity for a lot of help with my new volunteering gig, at the “Pilsen Community Market”. These things were exactly what I was looking for.

The day started, again, with coffee (but no tea!)… Continue reading →

Business Advice for Farmers & Food Businesses That is Good for Every Small Business.

AKA “A Partial Recap of Family Farmed Expo’s First Day”

The events opened with a morning keynote speech from Gary Hirshberg of Stonyfield Farms. He talked about how he got his start in organic dairy farming, specifically in yogurt, and where the money came from and where he is today. It was certainly an amusing speech, and I think the dairy farmer behind me got a lot out of it.

Basically, the seed money for Stonyfield came from all sorts of people that Hirshberg repeatedly asked for money. He spoke of calling his mother-in-law fairly regularly to help him out with payroll. He spoke of begging from anyone he could think of and how “anyone in a tie” was fair game to ask for a loan.… Continue reading →

Busy week ahead.

So, it turns out that there’s a big event regarding local foods and their sourcing right in my backyard. Considering I went “all the way to California”:http://metacookbook.com/archives/177-Where-Ive-been-and-where-Im-going..html to learn more about so much about all of this, it only made sense to find a way to get to “Family Farmed Expo”:http://www.familyfarmedexpo.com/ as well.

It wasn’t in the budget, much as I wanted it to be, to get the 3-day all-access passes. However, I got very lucky and won a pair of tickets to the “localicious party”:http://www.familyfarmedexpo.com/localicious/localiciousoverview.html and I managed to finagle the budget to go to the days of the conference as well. I’ll only be going to the “policy” part of Friday (which has three parts to it, a “trade show” for farmers & restaurateurs, a “school food summit” and a “policy summit”), which dropped the cost dramatically.… Continue reading →