Yesterday I came across Inc. Magazine’s 30 Under 30 list of America’s Coolest Young Entrepreneurs. Apparently I wasn’t cool enough this year, but I’ll leave my hard feelings aside because this list is an amazing source for interesting companies with exciting internships. While the list certainly skews towards tech, my favorite from the list is as old school as you can get. It’s a fungus startup–mushrooms to be exact. Most people stick to store bought mushrooms because eating some mushroom that you found growing in your yard could be deadly (or psychedelic), but store bought mushrooms often leave something to be desired–especially when they get slimy. Back to the Roots is an Oakland, CA based company that allows you to enjoy the freshly picked mushroom experience with a product that you can buy in a supermarket.
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The domestication of animals has to be one of the biggest developments in human history. They are obviously a wonderful direct food source, but they’re even better as an indirect food source when they provide things like milk, eggs, fertilizer, and more animals. So when we talk about battling poverty, it makes sense to go back to what worked for us in the past: animals. That’s what Heifer International does. They’re a Little Rock, AR based non-profit that enables people to “donate animals to poor countries.” It’s an ingenious idea, and it’s even kind of fun. Not only does an animal provide a source for food and other products, but it also requires responsibility. Caring for an animal is an ultimate life lesson.
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Considering the way most of us Americans eat, it’s nearly impossible to comprehend that a lot of people in this world rely on subsistence farming. In the U.S., a single farmer can easily feed about 100 people, yet across much of the world it takes an entire family’s work to feed a family. When Mother Nature stops playing nice, all of that work can be destroyed and the family may be left to go hungry. A big part of the difference in agricultural output has to do with technology, which is why One Acre Fund is working to bring farming technology to the developing world. They’re a non-profit based in New York, NY and Washington, DC, but they do most of their work in Kenya, Rwanda, and Burundi. One Acre Fund focuses on working directly with the poorest families–the ones that deal with hunger more than three months out of the year.
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I don’t think that I’ve had a frozen dinner since I forced my mom to buy me Kid Cuisine in the early 90s. If I’m going to eat something unhealthy, it should at least taste good, right? Clearly I’m biased against frozen meals (maybe because I consider myself a pretty good cook), but I shouldn’t write them all off as unhealthy and unpalatable. That’s especially true because one the nation’s leading frozen food brands is all vegetarian and mostly organic. Amy’s Kitchen was founded in 1987 by a couple looking for a way to provide for a new baby. They started in their home with a vegetable pot pie, and since then the Petaluma, CA based business has grown to hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue.
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In my fiancée’s mind there is no better dessert than fresh berries and whipped cream. I’d probably add a piece of chocolate cake to that, but the biggest variable in the equation is almost always the berries. Good berries, whether they’re strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, blackberries, or snozberries, taste better than candy, while bad berries often taste like dirt. Since I share Jerry Seinfeld’s feeling that fruit is a gamble, I’m not particularly brand conscious, but checking my refrigerator tells me that my most recently purchased strawberries are from Driscoll’s. They’re a Watsonville, CA based berry purveyor that has been family owned and operated for more than 100 years.
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Amy and I are going to the International Kennel Club of Chicago Dog Show today. We’re not thinking about getting a dog yet, but we’re thinking about thinking about it. Since dogs are on my mind today, I figured I’d look for an animal friendly non-profit. You’d be hard pressed to find an organization more animal friendly than The Humane Society of the United States. They are “the nation’s largest and most effective animal protection organization” with support from more than 11 million people in the U.S. Their national headquarters is based in Washington, DC, but you’re probably familiar with local humane societies. While the local societies are not directly connected with The Humane Society of the United States, they do get support from it.
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Ever tried a Craisin? You probably ate about 100 of them, right? The only ingredients are sugar and cranberries (hopefully not in that order), but I’m convinced they’re adding something else that makes them highly addictive. Ocean Spray has made a name for itself by consistently finding new ways to market the fruit that they produce.They’re an agricultural cooperative (I figured some monster corporation owned the brand), which means that they’re “owned by large group of cranberry growers throughout North America.” The large majority of the 600 members are cranberry growers, but that number also includes about 50 Florida grapefruit growers. This means that Ocean Spray is all about finding new ways to increase demand for the two tart, but delightful fruits that their growers grow. The company is based in Lakeville-Middleboro, MA, and they’ve been “the leading producer of canned and bottled juice drinks in North America” since 1981.
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Ten days ago we took a look at Rodale Institute, a non-profit that is “dedicated to pioneering organic farming through research and outreach.” We talked about how industrial farming has led to amazing boosts in productivity, but it’s also created a lot of problems. Marrone Bio Innovations is a Davis, CA based company that is taking a natural approach to one specific area of agriculture: pest control. They’re aiming to be “the world leader in natural product innovation” by making “natural, effective, safe, environmentally friendly products the mainstream future of pest management.” Usually you don’t hear organic and pesticide in the same sentence, but Marrone Bio Innovations’ business is predicated on bringing the two together.
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Last week I got an e-mail from a One Day, One Job reader who is just wrapping up a seasonal position and looking for her next gig. In doing so, she realized that other readers might be interested in her current position, so she wrote me to tell me about it. When I saw the name Rodale Institute in her e-mail, I swore to myself that I had already featured the organization, but it was actually a publishing company named Rodale that was started by the same person as the Institute and used to be financially linked to it as well. The Rodale Institute is a Kutztown, PA based non-profit organization that is “dedicated to pioneering organic farming through research and outreach.” They’ve been at it since 1947, and they’re going to keep “researching the best practices of organic agriculture and sharing [their] findings with farmers and scientists throughout the world” because they believe that eating organic is the healthiest option for people and for the Earth.
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I love the mountains. They are some of the most untamed and untouched pieces of land left on the face of the Earth, and I’ve come to appreciate them more and more as I’ve lived in Chicago where you can see flat, developed land to the horizon. People who live in mountain communities are extremely reliant on the ecosystems that exist above them, yet these ecosystems are some of the most sensitive known to man. The Mountain Institute is a non-profit organization that works to “develop policies, investments, and participatory approaches to enable mountain people, and the billions affected downstream, to understand, harness, and manage the interrelated and complex issues confronting the world’s mountains in the 21st century.” Their Executive Office is located in Washington, DC, while their Corporate Business Office is in Morgantown, WV. Additionally, they have program offices across Asia, North America, and South America.
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We’re supposed to reach a high of 56 degrees today in Chicago, which is great even if it’s foggy and gloomy. Spring is on its way, and in only a couple of months it will be farmers market season again. Although my city is short on farms (we have a few, really), there are a ton within driving distance. Many of them haul the food that they produce into the city on a weekly basis and sell it to the yuppies who love eating fresh, organic, locally grown food (also known as me). One of these farms is Tomato Mountain Farm, which is based in Brooklyn, WI. They have a presence somewhere in Chicago 6 days per week, and their produce offerings range from basil and beets to watermelons and zucchini. Obviously, they also grow a lot of tomatoes.
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You’ve probably heard the term “heirloom,” in reference to fruits or vegetables. For the longest time I had no idea what it meant, but eventually I asked someone and the gist of the definition is “any garden plant that has a history of being passed down within a family, just like pieces of heirloom jewelry or furniture.” More often than not the plants are passed down in the form of seeds. Heirloom breeds of plants are important not only for sentimental reasons, but also because they provide genetic diversity. By maintaining old breeds of plants with their unique resistance to disease and pests, we are able to ensure the security of our food supply. Seed Savers Exchange is a Decorah, IA based non-profit that “saves and shares the heirloom seeds of our garden heritage, forming a living legacy that can be passed down through generations.”
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