Esca Bona: Disrupting Food to Save Food
“Someone walks up to you on the street, you close your eyes and open your mouth and they put something in. That is the food industry in this country.”
There is a lot of shared apprehension for food makers and vendors — a small amount of even undeserved attention can send sales and business plummeting. Which is why Esca Bona (latin for good food) was such a singular event in food.
The first night, Whole Foods hosted dinner at their headquarters and CEO Walter Robb gave the first talk. Open secrets were tossed off, that food quality, the consistency of our food supply, how a lack education has left us obese, diabetic and lethargic, the health gap across the divide of poverty, were all open for discussion at Esca Bona. It was clear that we were gathered to talk openly, to help each other and solve the many problems we’re facing together.
Esca Bona is people who care passionately from large and small companies; entrepreneurs and innovators, titans and idealists, all united in the idea that everyone deserves to eat healthy, nourishing food.
The NourishTech panel was for many an introduction to the High Tech / Food interface. Tate Behning moderated the conversation with myself, Megan Morris of Souper Seconds, Michelle Simons of Eat Drink Politics and Art Elizondo, CEO of Clara Foods.
There were quite a few people who had not really encountered foods like ‘milk without the cow’, ‘egg whites without the chicken’, ‘seafood without the fish’.Clara, Muufri, and the newest crop of High Tech Food companies are only a little more than a year old. It seems impossible to imagine what a panel like this will be like in another year.
Technology has the potential to be part of the solution — to create transparency, to help everyone understand what is in the food and how its safe as well as improve the chances everyone on the face of the earth will be able to eat adequately.
Food is very personal and so something new is sometimes tough to embrace. But there was quite a bit of good conversation and a feeling that these companies, whether using yeast-derived or plant based proteins are helping to solve some of the problems we are facing.
Adding more biotech flavor to the conference, watch Dominique Barnes, CEO of IndieBio’s New Wave Foods give a two minute entrepreneurial talk.
