FOOD FUNDED

Adrienne DeLisio is an accomplished marketer with a deep passion for brand building, she has cultivated numerous high-impact partnerships, launched collaborative brand initiatives, and achieved strategic audience growth.

Adrienne’s exceptional networking skills have also enabled her to spearhead engaging industry and consumer events designed to help brands forge strong connections with their target audiences.

Amy Mescal is a Category Merchant at Whole Foods Market with more than 20 years at the company. She joined Whole Foods in 2005. Since then she has built a career in store operations and category management, and she now manages the bulk, nut butter, fruit spread and accoutrements categories.

Coefficient Capital leads growth investments in digitally powered consumer brands.

Anna is a Partner at Coefficient Capital, leading venture and growth stage investments into businesses powering modern transformational consumer shifts. Anna is a Milken Young Leader and has been named to Forbes 30 Under 30, Entrepreneur’s 100 Powerful Women, and the AUFI 20 Index.

Christa Barfield, AKA FarmerJawn, is a healthcare professional turned regenerative farmer, entrepreneur, and advocate for food justice.

Christine Rico is founder of CFO on Speeddial. She serves as CEO and leader of the company while also providing CFO services for impact-driven companies building solutions in food, climate and economic justice. Christine has worked on building profitable social impact companies for 38 years and has deep experience with CPG brands, as well as specializing in worker-owned cooperatives, and for-profit/ non-profit hybrid structures.

Christine is a former co-chair of Slow Money NYC, and through Slow Money NYC and as a member of Investors Circle has been active as an Impact Investor.

After spending 20 years in fashion and luxury businesses, Claude chose to dedicate himself to his interests in food, the environment, social enterprise, and the arts. He has become an avid impact angel investor in businesses with a sustainable food and agriculture mission.

Claude is the Co-Chair of Slow Money NYC and a founding member of Foodshed Investors New York, which recently merged with Investors Circle. He also serves as Board President of International Contemporary Ensemble.

Dacotah Rousseau was raised on the Upper West Side of Manhattan and now lives in Putnam County. In 2016, after a career in wine and spirits marketing and hospitality management, she joined Down to Earth Markets.

In 2021 she became Managing Director of the company, a mission-driven Certified B Corporation that manages 10 farmers markets in NYC and Westchester County. The company has a 35 year history of connecting small scale regional farmers and food makers directly to consumers.

Djenaba Johnson-Jones is the founder and CEO of Hudson Kitchen, a commercial kitchen and food business incubator based in Kearny, New Jersey. Hudson Kitchen helps emerging consumer packaged goods (CPG) food entrepreneurs develop, launch, and grow their businesses through access to commercial production facilities, business education, and a network of industry experts.

She is also the creator of Food Business Bootcamp®, an eight-month startup accelerator that guides packaged food founders from product development to commercial production and real-world sales

Errol Schweizer has worked with Whole Foods, Patagonia, Annie’s, General Mills, Fairway, Good Eggs and National Co-op Grocers. He co-founded HERBL, Good Catch, Basics Market and other brands. He is among the most influential natural product merchants of his generation, helping introduce hundreds of brands.

He has over 25 years of food retail, CPG, food service and advocacy experience, from grill cook, stock clerk and EMT to Vice President of Grocery and prolific Board Member.

The WEBATUCK VALLEY FARM COLLABORATIVE (WVFC) is a regional food sovereignty and farm cooperative development initiative led by Rock Steady Farm, Sweet Freedom Farm, and Wildseed Community Farm and Healing Village.

Jalal is a farmer, organizer, and educator with more than 25 years of leadership in the NY food justice ecosystem, focused on the intersection of food justice and prison abolition. His work using food & farmland as organizing tools to build & strengthen the "Grow Food, Not Prisons" movement is influenced by the lineage of elders and ancestors like Herman Bell, Malcolm X, Fannie Lou Hamer, and Harriet Tubman.

Corbin Hill Food Project (CH) is a Harlem-based nonprofit working at the intersection of food access, justice, and sovereignty. For over a decade, CH’s mission has been connecting BIPOC growers upstate to communities in New York City. 

Jenna Rice grew up learning about the connections between food, community and story, spending a lot of time in her family's 121 year old market in New Haven, CT. Currently, she focuses on building and maintaining farmer relationships, and leading equitable procurement, across the organization’s Farm Share, Farm Stand, wholesale, and Food as Medicine programs.

John Lawson is a Forager for the Northeast Region at Whole Foods Market, where he identifies, evaluates, and helps scale innovative food and beverage brands across one of the country’s most dynamic retail markets.

Working closely with emerging founders, established suppliers, distributors, and internal stakeholders, he connects exceptional products with opportunities for long-term growth.

Katerina Bogatireva is the founder of Precycle, a Brooklyn-based zero-waste grocery business making package-free shopping and reusable grocery delivery more accessible.

Originally from Riga, Latvia, Katerina moved to New York City in 2000. Her experience growing up with limited resources shaped her practical approach to waste and resourcefulness. Years later, her son’s questions about plastic pollution inspired her to turn those values into a business.

Keva Niver is the founder of Boheme Retreats, a Black-owned outdoor hospitality brand creating inclusive spaces for people to connect with nature and the soil. Her love for the outdoors began in the ocean as a surfer and grew through her experiences as an avid RVer. Now a beginning farmer, Keva is expanding that vision to a 100-acre farm in New York’s Greene County. Like many of the guests Boheme serves, her love for nature led her to want a deeper connection with the soil and a better understanding of where her food comes from.

Connected Chef works to build community power through the creation of a community-controlled food system that ensures every Queens’ household has consistent access to local, nutritious food; provides healthy eating education; and pathways to financial agency.

Kim Calichio is the Co-founder and Development Director at Connected Chef, a community-led organization re-envisioning food access. As a restaurant chef and mother, Kim understands the need for healthy food, as well as the stress that comes with food insecurity. In 2020, when the restaurant industry collapsed in NYC, and she and her community were left without a safety net, Kim worked with her neighbors and restaurant workers to create the Connected Chef. Together, they’ve spent the last five years building a community-controlled food system that sources ingredients from local Black and Brown farmers and distributes them across Queens County on a sliding scale.

Kobla Asamoah has over 15 years of experience supporting entrepreneurs and the startup community, helping founders operationalize, scale and fund their food-related ventures.

Kobla also serves as an Adjunct Lecturer at multiple universities on the topic of Social Entrepreneurship. He also serves on the board of The Bread Bakers Guild of America as well as the Advisory Board for Tufts University’s Derby Entrepreneurship Center. He holds an MBA from NYU as well as a BA from Tufts University.

LaRon Batchelor is the cofounder / CEO of Passport Food & Beverages, where he drives strategic marketing, events, and partnerships for CPG brands and restaurant owners.

LaRon also serves on the board of Naturally New York, where he supports the advancement of local, sustainable businesses in the natural products industry. Known for his collaborative approach and industry expertise, LaRon is dedicated to empowering founders and fostering vibrant brand ecosystems.

Maria Velasquez is the founder of The Purple Drop. Before entering the beverage industry, she spent more than a decade leading marketing and demand generation for enterprise technology and cybersecurity companies, building high-growth programs, global campaigns, and brand strategies across B2B tech.

She is Moroccan-born and raising a multicultural family with Peruvian traditions at the center of the table; she's driven by using food and beverage to connect people to culture, storytelling, and shared experiences.

Dr. Mark Chatarpal is the Executive Director of Hunter College’s New York City Food Policy Center, where he leads efforts to develop intersectoral, innovative, and evidence-based solutions to prevent diet-related diseases and promote food security in New York City.

He is a Food Anthropologist and holds a Ph.D. in Anthropology from Indiana University Bloomington, an M.A. in Anthropology, and a B.A. (Hons) specializing in Caribbean Studies. He also serves as a Doctoral Lecturer within Hunter College’s Department of Nutrition and Public Health.

Mark Watson is Co-founder and President of Potlikker Capital, charitable loan fund that provides relationship- centered, reparative financing to historically underserved Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) agricultural producers and processors in the United States.

Mr. Watson helped to launch and manage an integrated racial justice capital fund that deployed capital to BIPOC entrepreneurs, The Boston Impact Initiative Fund.

Boots Bread is opening its first bakery in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, with nourishing bread at the center of everything we make. We bake with grains grown in the Northeast, sourced from regional farms and mills, and we use stone-milled flour that brings out the flavor and nutrition that commodity flour leaves behind. Carla Finley started Apt. 2 Bread in April 2020. She has worked in the restaurant industry for 20 years, with experience at acclaimed bakeries such as She Wolf Bakery and Il Buco. Megan Wang is the founder of a nano-bakery called Graindead Bread, similarly focused on local sourcing with an emphasis on stoneground whole grains and regenerative farming.

Olivia Watkins (she/her) is Co-Founder and President of Black Farmer Fund, a community-governed investment fund supporting Black farmers and food businesses across the Northeast.

She serves on the Board of Directors of Amber Farmland Investments and is co-recipient of the 2023 James Beard Humanitarian of the Year Award. Olivia's work focuses on creating equitable access to capital and land for farmers and food businesses building regenerative food systems.

Peter J. Kim (he/him) is the founder of The Infinite Table, an immersive dining venture that fuses 360° video, storytelling, and food to transport people into cultural stories around the world. The Infinite Table was hailed as a "feast for the senses" by Time Out and has appeared in The New York Times, New York Magazine, and Eater.

As founding director of the Museum of Food and Drink (MOFAD), he led the creation of one of the world's only museums that brings food culture to life through exhibits you can eat. His food and music podcast Counterjam on Food52 was recognized by The Guardian as a best food podcast. He is the author of Instant Ramen Kitchen, named a best cookbook by Bon Appétit, Wired, and Slate.

NouBon brings Caribbean-inspired snacks and nut butters to everyday snacking and gifting. Founded by two Haitian-born sisters, the brand celebrates the flavors they grew up loving, with small-batch treats made to share, spark memories, and introduce something new.

Pierrelande Saint-Cyr is the co-founder of NouBon, a Caribbean-inspired snack and nut butter brand she runs with her sister, Marie. Born in Haiti, she moved to the United States at six years old. 

Nguyen Coffee Supply is America’s first specialty Vietnamese coffee company and proud champion of the resilient robusta bean. The company imports through direct-trade relationships with Vietnamese farmers and roasts in Brooklyn, New York. Founded in 2018 by 1st generation and daughter of refugees, Sahra Nguyen, the company’s mission is to promote diversity, sustainability and cultural integrity within the coffee industry.

Specifically, by addressing the decades-long stigma against robusta coffee which systematically relegates the robusta growing community, we strive to build a more inclusive coffee industry.

Savannah Starks is a principal at Fullerfield Capital, vetting prospective investments and performing financial due diligence.

Previously, Savannah worked with various investment funds.
Savannah has a BA from Occidental College in Biology, and an MA from Teachers College at Columbia University.
Her personal goal is to reach more people than McDonald's, especially as it relates to positive impact for women’s health, climate resilience, and opportunities for low income youth. Savannah loves standup comedy, home cooking and gardening.

Hot Oven Cookies is a product-first, community-driven baking empire built on the uncompromising motto: One Bite. No Hype. Utilizing a highly scalable, asset-light Hub & Spoke manufacturing model, we supply de-risked micro-franchises and high-volume institutional B2B pipelines with premium, proprietary dough pucks and formulations. Backed by a deep Puerto Rican heritage (culinary and spunky attitude), an unstoppable urban grit, and a notebook of 1,000 original recipes, Sheila Coonhas dragged her brand from the absolute trenches of a homeless shelter all the way to the Tamron Hall Show and the Boston Globe.

Brooklyn Packers is the Black-led, worker-owned food sourcing, packing, and distribution cooperative in NYC, operating since 2016. BKP connects small-scale BIPOC, queer, and women farmers in the Northeast to NYC markets.

Steph is dedicated to ensuring that every New Yorker can access healthy food through the worker-owned food distribution cooperative, Brooklyn Packers. His focus is on creating a blueprint for neighborhood owned food hubs that connect QTBIPOC farms and aggregators with both communities in need and new markets.