Food Biz Week
See You in 2023!
Food Biz Week was hosted live for free from February 22nd - 25th, 2022. This was an opportunity for food and farm businesses at all levels of food production and food retail in the Pacific Northwest to learn from industry experts and fellow experienced colleagues through a curated week of virtual panels, presentations, and networking activities. Food and farm entrepreneurs attend from across the Pacific Northwest (Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Alaska).
For 2022, Business Impact NW has partnered with the Prosper Portland, Portland Japan Initiative, the PNW Packaged Food & Beverage Google Group, Sustainable Connections, and Seattle Good Business Network to host Food Biz Week.
Food Biz Week 2022 Recap
- Tuesday, February 22nd, 2022 – Farm-to-Table Trade Meeting
- Wednesday, February 23rd, 2022 – Virtual Panels: Farm Businesses
- Thursday, February 24th, 2022 – Virtual Panels: Packaged Food/Value-Add Businesses
- Friday, February 25th, 2022 – Virtual Panels: Foodservice Businesses
Recordings Coming Soon! You will be able to view the recordings of each day soon.
In February, we hosted panel discussions, presentations, and networking opportunities for food and farm entrepreneurs at all stages with education, insight, and connections to help their businesses launch, grow, and thrive.
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Accessibility
- Speakers will give a visual description of themselves during introductions
- Automatic Closed Captioning will be made available on the digital platform
- This event will be hosted in English, with Spanish translation available [Este evento se llevará a cabo en inglés con traducción disponible en español]
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Day 1
VIRTUAL FARM TO TABLE TRADE MEETING
Tuesday, February 22nd
Essential Links - Upcoming Food Infrastructure Projects to Connect Our Local Food System
How can we help local restaurants and even institutions source meat more locally at the scale they need? How can we preserve the harvest to make sure we can source from local farms year-round?
Networking
This is a highlight of the Farm-to-Table Trade Meeting each year! Adapted for digital meeting space, our meetups will use Zoom breakout rooms to maximize the buyer and producer connections. Past attendees reported an average of 6 new sales connections as a result of the event, and the Farm-to-Table Trade Meeting in total has generated more than $500,000 in new sales each year.
Wholesale Opportunities for Local Producers
A consistent barrier many food buyers have in sourcing locally, whether it's a restaurant, a grocer, or an institution, is a lack of information about what producers are out there and what they are selling.
This is a particular challenge for smaller and emerging producers who may not have the marketing resources to find new customers. Join us to learn about the work being done to support new and existing wholesale producers while building resiliency into the fabric of our local and regional food supply chains.
“The way we see it, buying food from our local growers and producers is part of ensuring our collective food security and a vital step in emergency preparedness. We believe local buying is a ‘must do,’ not a ‘nice to do.’ The pandemic has brought this point home. Because we buy locally, we have been insulated from the supply chain disruptions others have contended with. We are so grateful for our local growers and producers!” - Erica Lamson, co-owner of Pizza’zza
Day 2
Farm Businesses
Wednesday, February 23rd
Farm Deep Dive Session 1
Getting Started, Scaling Up, and Innovating: A panel exploring various options and support for farm businesses that are looking to get started, looking to scale, or looking to innovate. With Emily Tzeng of Local Color Farm and Fiber and Ellen Scheffer and Ashley Wilson of Frisky Girl Farm.
Frisky Girl Farm is a five-acre vegetable and flower farm in North Bend. Grown with love right under Mt. Si. They use all sustainable practices to grow their food and sell through their customizable CSA, at the North Bend and Issaquah farmers markets, and on the farm at their farm stand. Farmers Ellen Scheffer and Ashley Wilson joined forces in 2016 to run City Grown Seattle, and now these two are growing big with Frisky Girl Farm! #saladgetsyouripped
Local Color Farm and Fiber is owned and operated by Emily Tzeng and Brian Love. They grow fresh vegetables, flowers, heritage breed lamb, and naturally dyed fibers. Emily originally established the farm on Bainbridge Island in 2013 on multiple plots before they were able to settle in the Puyallup River Valley in 2018. They are excited to be growing this farm and to keep this land in agriculture for another generation. thoughtfully grown food and fibers
Farm Deep Dive Session 2
Getting Started, Scaling Up, and Innovating: A panel exploring various options and support for farm businesses that are looking to get started, looking to scale, or looking to innovate. With Michelle Week of Good Rain Farm and Bil Thorn of Sky Island Farm.
Sky Island Farm is a 15 acre vegetable, herb, fruit and flower farm in Humptulips, Grays Harbor. They grow intensively on 2 acres and sell through farmers markets, stores, to restaurants, and their CSA which is Grays Harbor’s longest running and largest CSA with home delivery. Owners Bil Thorn and Kate Harwell grow everything using only organic, sustainable and regenerative methods. For his hard work and dedication to feed their local community, Bil was awarded Tilth Alliance’s 2020 Farmer of the Year.
x̌ast sq̓it (hast squeit) translates to Good Rain in the traditional language of the sngaytskstx (Sinixt) the Arrow Lakes Peoples. Good Rain Farm is primarily an Indigenous Femme led and operated mixed produce Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm with an emphasis on Indigenous First Foods. We also raise heritage breed Champagne d’Argent meat rabbits to provide full dietary and meal options to our members, a nod to Farmer Michelle's family heritage. The principles of Good Rain Farm are decolonizing diets, revitalizing culture, food sovereignty and the returning to reverent sustainable land stewardship. Revitalizing Culture & Community
Launch and Grow Your Farm Business
In this virtual resource roundtable, you will hear from and connect with resources that can help you start or scale your farm business. Hear about market opportunities, accessing land, accessing capital, technical assistance, and more!
Day 3
PACKAGED FOOD/VALUE-ADD BUSINESSES
Thursday, February 24th
9:00 - 10:15 AM - Packaged Food Business Deep Dive 1
Getting Started, Scaling Up, and Innovating: A panel exploring various options and support for packaged food businesses that are looking to get started, looking to scale, or looking to innovate. With Alessandra Gordon of Ayako & Family and Jeanette Macias of Seeking Kombucha.
Ayako & Family emerged in the summer of 2009, since then partnering exclusively with Mair Farm-Taki in Yakima, Washington to introduce both heritage and heirloom plum varieties to their signature hexagonal jar of preserves. From their ingredient sourcing to preserving processes, Ayako & Family continues to produce with the fruit as the core expression of each product. Alessandra Gordon, Ayako's daughter, brings Ayako & Family it's second generation of jam makerGs to the table and produces the jam herself with the recipes her mother created nearly a decade ago. Plum jams that ignite familiarity and curiosity.
Seeking Kombucha believes in sourcing their ingredients from their local community and supporting our Washington small businesses & local farmers. To them, their community is like a SCOBY (symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast) molded together from it’s surrounding environment. It creates a protection and barrier to uplift and create growth. That’s what they want to provide for their community, by not only offering gut healthy drinks but offering a safe community space to learn and grow together. Partners, Jeanette Macias and Lyz Bartolome, recently opened a taproom in South Lake Union with 12 Taps of Kombucha, Jun, Turmeric Soda, Tepache & other fermented drinks! women owned. minority owned. lgbt owned. small business.
Packaged Food Business Deep Dive 2 -
Getting Started, Scaling Up, and Innovating: A panel exploring various options and support for packaged food businesses that are looking to get started, looking to scale, or looking to innovate. With Nikki Guerrero of Hot Mama Salsa and Wassef Haroun of mamnoon fine foods and nadi mama.
Hot Mama Salsa began out of a craving for the flavors of home, Mexican-inspired southwest cuisine. Out of a small production kitchen in Portland, Oregon, owner Nikki Guerrero hand produces fresh salsas, hot sauces, and chili oils using traditional ethnic cooking methods and fresh local ingredients. Their salsas feature recipes from the Guerrero family and are influenced by Mexican culture. Their products include flavors that are bright, fresh, earthy, smoky, and spicy. Local. Fresh. Deliciosa.
Wassef and Racha Haroun opened mamnoon restaurant in Seattle in 2012 which has grown into the mama family of restaurants which includes mamnoon, mbar, mamnoon street, anar, and a recently launched packaged food line – mamnoon fine foods. mama group creates and enriches relationships with people from a broad spectrum of backgrounds through hospitality, beverage and food experiences rooted in refined levantine traditions, crafted for modern healthy, compassionate and progressive communities. “spread the love, spread the levant”
Business Resources Panel - Resources and Opportunities to Launch and Grow Your Packaged Food or Value-Add Business
In this virtual resource roundtable, you will hear from and connect with resources that can help you start or scale your packaged food or value-add business. Hear about market opportunities, key infrastructure needs, accessing capital, technical assistance, networking channels, and more!
Day 4
FOODSERVICE BUSINESSES
Friday, February 25th
Foodservice Business Deep Dive 1
Getting Started, Scaling Up, and Innovating: A panel exploring various options and support for foodservice businesses that are looking to get started, looking to scale, or looking to innovate. With Zachary & Seth Pacleb of Brothers & Co. and Emily Kim of The Pastry Project.
With a family heritage that traces lines across the oceans from the Philippines to Croatia, brothers and owners Zachary and Seth Pacleb offer a selection of everything from ramen, seasonal preserves, to house made yogurt, & tortillas for pick up from their kitchen, pop up locations, and farmers markets. Their products change with the seasons and are designed around what is available from local farmers. They believe in produce defined by terroir, handmade noodles, fresh herbs, aged vinegars, turbulent stocks, and bright orange yolks with a first and ultimate intention to deliver an experience with food that is deeply satisfying: nourishing to the body, exciting to the senses, and rooted in a conscientious integrity. Bringing you serious snacks since 2012.
Having met years ago at Molly Moon’s Ice Cream, founders Heather Hodge and Emily Kim started The Pastry Project to make a pastry education and job more accessible and to create opportunity for those that need it. The Pastry Project is a social enterprise and community space providing free baking and pastry training to individuals with barriers to education and employment in the industry. They fund their free 14-week training program through donations, subscriptions, classes, events, and incubator residencies for small businesses. With Baking and Pastry classes, Goody Box Memberships, and Pastry Kit Subscriptions, learning is the foundation of The Pastry Project. Have Fun. Do Good.
Foodservice Business Deep Dive 2
Getting Started, Scaling Up, and Innovating: A panel exploring various options and support for foodservice businesses that are looking to get started, looking to scale, or looking to innovate. With Efrem Fesaha of Boon Boona Coffee and Mark Lopez of Crave Catering & Gather and Feast Farm.
"Boon" and "Boona" are both words that mean "coffee" in different languages of East Africa. At Boon Boona, founder and CEO, Efrem Fesaha is committed to sharing the unique coffee and coffee traditions of this region — and to supporting coffee growers and the local community in the process. They are an exclusively African Coffee Roaster based in Renton, Washington with a second location recently opened in Seattle. They look to leave more added value in an equitable way to African Coffee Producers while providing a welcoming space for all in their Cafes. Boon Boona Coffee is the bridge between African specialty coffee and You.
Crave Catering provides a true farm-to-table experience by sourcing ingredients from their own family-owned farm, Gather and Feast Farm - a 20-acre property just outside of the historic La Center, WA, with varieties of vegetables, fruit trees, herbs and home of laying hens, broiler hens, quail, ducks, and their famous Scottish Highland Cattle. Through events hosting, farm dinners, a farm store with artisanal products and produce, and truly sustainable catering options, they are building community and saving small farms through the age-old tradition of breaking bread and raising a glass!
Launch and Grow Your Foodservice Business
In this virtual resource roundtable, you will hear from and connect with resources that can help you start or scale your foodservice business. Hear about market opportunities, key infrastructure needs, accessing capital, technical assistance, networking channels, and more!
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Utilize the Food Business Resource Center
For access to free webinars, amazing classes, free business coaching, and connections to food-business resources across the state of Washington, connect with the Food Business Resource Center (FBRC) at Business Impact NW.
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2022 Food Biz Week Event Sponsor
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2022 Food Biz Week Event Partners
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Sustaining Partners
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Interested in being an Event Sponsor? View our Sponsor Guides or contact development@businessimpactnw.org