News
Change Food Fest Speaker Spotlight: Will Rosenzweig
Change Food | Posted: 08/23/2016
Stephanie Miller
- Mission-driven food businesses have proven that they can compete and take significant market share from large traditional food brands. They do this by innovating with their products and processes and through the way they express their values in their business strategies and brand identities. These values-driven businesses create meaningful and loyal relationships with their customers, and as a result are worth more in the marketplace. “B Corporations”–which create a standard of excellence in terms of transparency and social and environmental responsibility– have become the industry standard for values-driven businesses.
- Consumers are much more attuned to issues related to health and sustainability in the food system. We now have incontrovertible scientific evidence that diet and nutrition are directly linked to an explosion of chronic disease and that industrial farming practices cause tremendous negative impacts to the earth and to climate change. Neither the burden of costs (and suffering) associated with diabetes and cardiovascular disease are sustainable. Nor are the climate and soil impacts from the way we’ve come to produce food during the past sixty years. People are waking up to the need to act responsibly and consciously in their eating and purchasing habits. And new companies are making it easier and effective for us to do this.
- There is substantially more capital available to new food businesses than there was 25 years ago. Almost all of the pioneers of the natural and organic food industry boot-strapped their businesses with small amounts of capital from friends and family for many, many years–until they reached proven thresholds of acceptance and success. The rule of thumb was that you generally needed to reach $10M in sales with $1M in profit before an institutional private equity investor would put money in a company. Today, the venture capital industry has become enamored with the possibility of food businesses delivering fast and extraordinary returns. There is also a new “class” of capital coming from values-focused “impact investors”—foundations and family offices providing patient capital with long-term financial expectations.
- Finally, technology is transforming every aspect of the food industry–particularly in the realms of production, processing, distribution and consumer experience. In the near future, we will also see increased understanding and application in the sciences—of human and soil biology and sequencing of the microbiome to catalyze a complete transformation of the field of nutrition and disease. It’s a very exciting time to be reinventing the food industry!
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Press Release
Change Food Fest Speaker Spotlight: Will Rosenzweig
Posted: 08/23/2016
We’re excited to introduce you to our speakers for the 2016 Change Food Fest through a series of personal Q&A’s. Today we are talking with William Rosenzweig of The Food Business School. William Rosenzweig, Dean and Executive Director of The Food Business School, at The Culinary Institute of America, has spent his career as an educator, entrepreneur, and venture investor. Will was founding CEO of The Republic of Tea, the company that created the premium tea category in the U.S. He is co-author of “The Republic of Tea, How an Idea Becomes a Business,” named one of the ten best business books of all time. He is managing partner of Physic Ventures, the first venture capital firm to focus on health and sustainable living. As Dean and Executive Director of The Food Business School, Will works with industry experts and academic leaders to create experiential educational programs that enable entrepreneurs and innovators to deliver impactful solutions to address the world’s most pressing food challenges—and its greatest business opportunities. What’s one thing anyone can do to help the good food movement? As ‘eaters’, we can become more aware of how the food choices we make in our daily lives impact local and global food-systems at large. We can become more intentional in our eating decisions. Ideally, the values we hold to be integral to our lives–to be happy and healthy and (hopefully) wise–would be reflected in the food-related actions we take. Right now, most of us participate automatically and habitually in a very opaque food system. We don’t really know how or where our food is grown or how it gets to us, or understand the implications of the growing and distribution practices we inadvertently participate in. Maybe we could become informed, active food “citizens” rather than unknowing, passive consumers. We need to be thinking and acting long-term, to preserve and protect safe and healthy food options for future generations. ‘Good’ food is ultimately our source of health and well-being. There are tremendous challenges and changes afoot in the food system–challenges to healthfully feed a burgeoning global population in a sustainable manner on a warming planet. There are also rapid changes in science and consumer preferences that are driving rapid shifts in eating behaviors and consumption patterns. And of course, there are farmers and chefs and writers who are educating our minds, hearts and palates with wonderful ingredients, dishes and ideas for us to devour. At The Food Business School, we help foodpreneurs leapfrog many common obstacles to success. We prepare entrepreneurs and innovators to develop winning plans and strategies, to recognize and anticipate obstacles and to resourcefully compete and win. We help young companies become more “investable” and more likely to succeed. We focus on the skillsets, toolsets and mindsets entrepreneurial leaders need to be successful in an incredibly competitive and dynamic marketplace. We are intently focused on the design and growth of purpose-driven companies. The kinds of companies that win financially, and deliver meaningful social and environmental impact. How has the environment for foodpreneurs changed since you founded your first purpose-driven food company, The Republic of Tea (TRoT), in 1992? What has stayed the same? In 1990, when I began to draft the ‘Constitution’ for The Republic of Tea, the natural foods industry was in its infancy. Whole Foods was still a regional market and the distribution of healthier food was relegated to a highly fragmented set of specialty retail and gift type stores. Healthy food was on the cusp of merging with gourmet foods and there was a specific “specialty food” customer who was prepared to go out of their way and pay a premium for ‘healthier’ products Also, the idea of “doing well and doing good” in business was very new at that time. We were at the earliest stages of entrepreneurs experimenting with business models and strategies to differentiate themselves through their values. Some notable organic and natural food companies borrowed values from the social and environmental movements of the 1960’s–like Ben and Jerry’s, Stonyfield Farms, Odwalla— and incorporated them into every aspect of the brand identities of their businesses. There are several things that are very different now:- Mission-driven food businesses have proven that they can compete and take significant market share from large traditional food brands. They do this by innovating with their products and processes and through the way they express their values in their business strategies and brand identities. These values-driven businesses create meaningful and loyal relationships with their customers, and as a result are worth more in the marketplace. “B Corporations”–which create a standard of excellence in terms of transparency and social and environmental responsibility– have become the industry standard for values-driven businesses.
- Consumers are much more attuned to issues related to health and sustainability in the food system. We now have incontrovertible scientific evidence that diet and nutrition are directly linked to an explosion of chronic disease and that industrial farming practices cause tremendous negative impacts to the earth and to climate change. Neither the burden of costs (and suffering) associated with diabetes and cardiovascular disease are sustainable. Nor are the climate and soil impacts from the way we’ve come to produce food during the past sixty years. People are waking up to the need to act responsibly and consciously in their eating and purchasing habits. And new companies are making it easier and effective for us to do this.
- There is substantially more capital available to new food businesses than there was 25 years ago. Almost all of the pioneers of the natural and organic food industry boot-strapped their businesses with small amounts of capital from friends and family for many, many years–until they reached proven thresholds of acceptance and success. The rule of thumb was that you generally needed to reach $10M in sales with $1M in profit before an institutional private equity investor would put money in a company. Today, the venture capital industry has become enamored with the possibility of food businesses delivering fast and extraordinary returns. There is also a new “class” of capital coming from values-focused “impact investors”—foundations and family offices providing patient capital with long-term financial expectations.
- Finally, technology is transforming every aspect of the food industry–particularly in the realms of production, processing, distribution and consumer experience. In the near future, we will also see increased understanding and application in the sciences—of human and soil biology and sequencing of the microbiome to catalyze a complete transformation of the field of nutrition and disease. It’s a very exciting time to be reinventing the food industry!
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