Register here!
Join the Frizzell Speaker and Learning Series (“Frizzell Series”) and the Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation for a panel discussion about innovative approaches to food education, food production, and food waste. The panel will feature speakers from various local and national companies that are guided by a positive social mission, an entrepreneurial spirit, and a desire to bring healthy and sustainable food to Chicagoans. Reception to follow the panel discussion.
Panelists:
- Raj Karmani, Zero Percent and Farmer’s Fridge
- Whitney Richardson, Big Green
- Jenny Yang, Phoenix Bean
- Mark Thomann, Spiral Sun Ventures
- Jim Slama, Family Farmed (Moderator)
This event is part of UChicago Innovation Fest 2018, which will take place from May 1 to June 3. Innovation Fest is a month-long celebration of the pioneering and entrepreneurial endeavors at the University of Chicago, featuring events on campus and in key cities around the world. Learn more about UChicago Innovation Fest here.
About the panelists:
Jim Slama, Family Farmed
Jim Slama founded FamilyFarmed at a time when few people recognized the term “Good Food movement,” and demand for locally, sustainably, humanely, and fairly produced food was still a tiny sliver of the overall consumer market. In 2004, Slama created the Good Food Trade Show, the oldest and most successful local, sustainable food trade show in America. Buyers such as Whole Foods, UNFI, KeHE, McCormick Place, O’hare Aiport, Chicago Public Schools, US Foods, Compass Group, Aramark, Kroger, and more attend the show to develop new relationships. Held each March in Chicago, the event has evolved into the Good Food EXPO. The Good Food Financing and Innovation Conference was launched in partnership with the University of Chicago Booth School of Business in 2009. It will take placeJune 19 at Morgan Manufacturing in Chicago. More than 50 businesses have pitched investors at the conference and raised over $50 million in debt and equity financing. To build on this momentum, Slama created the Good Food Business Accelerator in 2014. It is based at 1871, Chicago’s center for innovation and business incubation. The Accelerator program provides competitively selected entrepreneurs with a six-month program that includes a curriculum, mentorship, technical assistance, and networking opportunities with potential investors. Whole Foods, KeHE, UNFI, and Fortune Gourmet and key partners in the Accelerator and oftentimes purchase from these businesses.
Whitney Richardson, Big Green
Whitney Richardson began working with Big Green in 2015 as a Chicago Garden Educator, supporting 40 out of a growing network of more than 150 Learning Gardens, outdoor classrooms centered around organic veggie gardens, within Chicago Public Schools. She now operates as Chicago Regional Development Manager, supporting the Regional Director, to ensure growth and longevity of the initiative and food literacy programs within Chicago. She has co-directed the Logan Square Farmers Market (LSFM), Chicago’s only weekly, year-round farmers market, since 2015. The LSFM was named the best in the state of Illinois by USA Today in 2017 and mentioned in New York Times’ “36 Hours in Chicago” in 2016, and has held the title of best farmers market by the Chicago Reader for over 5 years. In her spare time, she acts as a consultant with sustainable food companies and edits articles and proposals for organic produce professionals. She holds a BA in International Studies, with a Human Rights concentration, from the University of Iowa, and a Post-Professional Certificate in Sustainable Urban Design from Archeworks.
Raj Karmani, Farmer’s Fridge and Zero Percent
Raj Karmani is the the CTO at Farmer’s Fridge, a venture-backed startup on a mission to make fresh food available 24/7 through a growing network of 120+ smart, automated fridges. He oversees all engineering and digital products such as the fridge IoT technology, including hardware, software and a secure network, web and mobile apps as well as the cloud and data infrastructure, with a personal philosophy that technology enables access, scale and personalized magical experiences.
Raj is a Distinguished Alumni of the Computer Science department at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. During the last year of his PhD, he founded a public benefit corporation Zero Percent, which is an online food rescue platform for restaurants and food operators to donate any excess food to local charities in an easy and safe way. Zero Percent received seed funding from Chuck Templeton and Impact Engine, and made an impact of providing 1.5 million meals from 100+ businesses to 80+ nonprofits in Chicago and Nashville.
Jenny Yang, Phoenix Bean
Jenny Yang is the President of Phoenix Bean, a premier supplier of tofu to the Chicagoland area for more than 30 years. Currently, Phoenix Bean is expanding to a $1.7 million, 10,000-square-foot facility on North Broadway to meet booming consumer demand, competing with companies on the national scale. In 2015, Phoenix Bean’s production grew to 1.2 million pounds of tofu products. Phoenix Bean’s production is anticipated to hit 2.5 million pounds by 2020. Phoenix Bean’s factory in the Edgewater neighborhood was one of the first local sources of fresh tofu, and began supplying local Chinese restaurants and Asian grocers. Each batch of tofu was handcrafted daily to ensure the freshness and authenticity demanded by an immigrant community longing for the tastes of their homelands. Now, Phoenix Bean is commonly found in Whole Foods, Mariano’s, and Green City Market in Chicago.
