the GoodEater Collaborative

Author: Joshua Levin (33 Articles)

Joshua Levin is a consultant to non-profits and their corporate partners in sustainable agriculture business development and sustainable food markets. Joshua holds an MBA from the NYU Stern School of Business, where he was a Catherine B. Reynolds Fellow in Social Entrepreneurship, and a BA from Harvard University. He lives with his wife in Brooklyn, NY.

- posted by Joshua

GoodEater.org recently decided to test the value of bringing people from organizations such as Slow Food, Unilever, and UBS together in an offline dinner entitled “The Future of Food”, cheffed by our own Kenji Alt.

We believe there is a critical need for cross-sector dialogue in order to develop a  long-term vision for the future of food.  Fortunately, many players across the food landscape have been acquiring on-the-ground experience in food sustainability.

The intimate meal included the following guests:

• Gilbert Kendzior, Managing Director of Lipton Tea’s Global Supply Chains
• Erika Lesser, Executive Director of Slow Food USA
• Janine Yorio, Founder and President of NewSeed Advisors
• Judson Berkey, Managing Director of Group Operational Risk, UBS
• James Fisher, Risk Control, UBS Global Asset Management
• Alison Buckley, PR Director for Daniel Boulud
• Josh Dorf, President of Stone Buhr Flour
• Kenji Alt & Joshua Levin, Founders of GoodEater.org

Kenji, a private chef, prepared the following menu:

• Deviled eggs with home-made gravlax and Niçoise olives
• Country ham biscuits with tomato-pepper jelly
• Chantenay carrot soup with pomegranate and nutmeg créme fraîche
• Roasted beet and pear salad with hazelnut vinaigrette, fried chickpeas, and goat cheese
• Gnocchi Parisiennes soufflés with winter squash and sage
• Apple pie with chana masala ice cream

At nine people, we were just the right size to hold full-table conversations while representing a variety of viewpoints.  Topics ranged from agricultural subsidies to grain-milling to the dynamics of different farm sizes.  There was excitement around Lipton’s decision to pursue Rainforest Alliance certification for their teas and consternation around “ag in-the-middle” and the fading mid-sized farm.

This was just the beginning.  In addition to more dinners, GoodEater.org is committed to bringing   conversations on food sustainability from professional voicesinto the public forum.

(For a taste of what fruits these conversations can produce, taking a look at the report from a “Future of Food” conference held in Brussels last year.)