OUR MISSION:
Our mission is to broaden the horizons of pre-college students by connecting them with cutting-edge, leading companies in the sustainable food and climate space and exposing them to college experience.
ABOUT FOF SUMMER PROGRAM
During our month-long summer program in the Bay Area, students are exposed to a range of topics that impact our food system and planetary health. Our company partners provide students with unparalleled access to their leadership and innovators in the food and sustainability sectors, demonstrating problem identification and solving in action.
As part of the programmatic coursework, students work on a Sustainable Entrepreneurship Challenge to identify a problem within our food system and prototype a company or consumer product goods (CPG) that offers a possible solution.
Our academic component is led by MBA students from the UC Berkeley Haas School of Business through our partnership with the school’s Plant Futures Initiative.
Program participants work closely with our graduate mentors to receive guidance on entrepreneurship, sustainability concepts, business practices and much more, helping them to understand the challenges companies face in the food and sustainability space. Weekly academic sessions help prepare students for the structure and coursework they will experience in college and inform and inspire the students to apply their newfound knowledge to their Sustainable Entrepreneurship Challenge.
WHY THE FUTURE OF FOOD ENTREPRENEURSHIP PROGRAM?
From environmental challenges, like global climate change and massive food waste, to ethical crises involving factory farming and an exploited workforce, our food system is in crisis.
We must also consider what the future will look like if we want to create a more just and sustainable food system for everyone.
Disenfranchised populations bear the brunt of our current system’s inequities, and they have not yet been given a seat at the table when it comes to solving these problems.
FoodTech and AgTech are solving many of the issues that we face in our food system, but the industry has a diversity and inclusion problem.
The future of how we eat better – for ourselves and for our planet – is at stake, and it will be saved by a multiracial and multiethnic generation of chefs, entrepreneurs, and thought leaders. If we are going to solve these problems together, we need to ensure everyone has a voice in the conversation, a seat at the table, and representation in the boardroom.
