Community Impact

Fresh Taste’s catalytic funding initiatives advance key developments in the field or spur innovation to address some of the food system’s most pressing challenges, and also reflect member and community direction and priorities.

Since our founding in 2002, members of Fresh Taste have collectively granted more than $160 million to the region’s food and agricultural systems. Fresh Taste was instrumental in supporting the early development of Advocates for Urban Agriculture, Illinois Farm to School Network and other initiatives. Fresh Taste has been involved in the co-development of numerous initiatives aimed at creating local, sustainable, and climate-resilient food systems, including:

Artisan Grain Collaborative, launched in 2016 to build a regenerative grain sector in the upper Midwest;
Funders for Regenerative Agriculture (FORA), a national initiative to build soil health as a means to mitigate climate change, enhance water quality, support human health, and build healthy communities;
LINK Up Illinois, an initiative to double the value of SNAP benefits at farmers markets statewide;
the Sustainable Local Food Investment Group (SLoFIG), a network of accredited independent investors who share the mission of using private investment to re-establish a robust and sustainable food system across the Chicago foodshed; and
Wasted Food Action Alliance, a statewide network of organizations partnering on work to prevent food loss, rescue/redistribute edible food, and recycle food through composting and other technologies.

Our current funding initiatives are designed to help create a resilient, racially- and economically-just future through food. As a resource for the local food movement, we use multiple approaches to support food system work at the places where leadership, assets, and leverage have the most potential to converge.