He’s the voice of the customer inside of our walls, and the operational experience he had building one of the worlds most trusted brands. To be able to bring that perspective into our company at this stage we find to be extremely additive and exciting.
- James Rogers, Apeel's CEO
From seed to retail, we bring food brands to life.
There is now an appreciation that food matters. Together with technology change, media change, and a generation change, we’re at a place where we can take on the next generation of issues.
We advise and invest in great ideas and entrepreneurs that share our passion for healthy food and more sustainable food system. Organizations of all sizes can benefit from our passionate approach to leadership and purpose driven businesses.
Board
LiveKindly Collective
A purpose driven business founded to accelerate the transformation of the global food industry into a healthier, sustainable, kinder food system, accessible to all.
Union Square Hospitality Group
Union Square Hospitality Group has created some of New York’s most beloved restaurants, cafes, and bars, which offer outstanding food delivered with our signature warmth and hospitality.
Apeel Sciences
Inspired by nature’s strategy for preservation, James and the Apeel Sciences team went to work building a barrier out of edible plant materials that would slow down the rate of spoilage.
Hungry
A food-tech catering company that connects customers to chefs and delivers fresh food from these chefs to the customers. The menu ranges from seasonally-inspired salads and custom burger stations to modern takes on classic sandwiches and culturally-diverse dishes.
Whole Kids Foundation
CO-FOUNDER & CHAIRMAN EMERITUS
Whole Kids Foundation is dedicated to helping kids eat better—and enjoy it! We are a nonprofit 501(c)(3) founded by Whole Foods Market and guided by the same values, principles, expertise and standards for quality ingredients, food production methods and nutrition.
Whole Cities Foundation
FOUNDER & CHAIRMAN EMERITUS
Whole Cities Foundation is on a mission to improve individual and community health through collaborative partnerships, education, and broader access to nutritious food.
Tilray
Tilray is one of the largest and most sophisticated producers of premium medical cannabis in the world. They are responsible for engaging in the research, cultivation, production, and distribution of medical cannabis.
Soli Organic
Soli Organic is able to recreate nature indoors to consistently grow 100% USDA Certified Organic food that’s flavorful, sustainable, and for the first time, truly affordable.
Advisor
Brightseed
Brightseed’s Forager® is the world’s first and only artificial intelligence to map millions of bioactive natural compounds and make new connections between the natural world and human health. Forager has analyzed over 700,000 compounds for their health properties and is on track to surpass 10 million by 2025. Their science team leverages the most advanced computational biology and plant processing techniques to develop “molecular signatures” of plants in the edible and medicinal plant kingdom.
FoodX
FoodX software is tailored specifically to the changing needs and demands of grocers. Deliver online profitably and efficiently with your existing legacy assets with a platform that is tailored to your unique business operation and growth model for the future.
TSO Chinese Delivery
Tso Chinese Delivery is committed to serving you fresh, delicious Chinese food, affordably. Tso never charges a delivery or service fee, and has a strict no tipping policy. What you see on their ordering website is what you pay. No additional fees and no tips.
iUNU
iUNU (“you knew”) is an industrial computer vision company headquartered in Seattle, with offices in San Francisco. Connecting plants, facilities, and people through a single interface, LUNA turns commercial greenhouses into precise, predictable, demand based manufacturers. An AI born in the heart of Seattle; trained in Silicon Valley and the greenhouses of Skagit Valley; and now accessible from everywhere.
A Pup Above
A Pup Above was created to make it super simple to know what’s in your dog’s bowl. They are also dedicated to making food more sustainable so it’s better for humans, pups, and the planet. Which means, taking into account ethics during every phase of a product’s lifecycle—from packaging design and ingredient sourcing to how the product is sold. They are into recycled packaging, upcycling when possible, and sourcing from farmers with strict animal welfare standards.
Jane Technologies
Jane is a fully-automated eCommerce platform for cannabis retailers. Our bespoke menus allow your brand to shine, and our technology converts the highest possible percentage of browsers into buyers.
Investor
Afresh
Afresh is the first Fresh Operating System built specifically to help grocers increase sales, empower store teams, stock fresher food, and reduce waste.
Allbirds
A company that specializes in designing sustainable footwear. The company’s flagship shoes are made from merino wool. In addition, it provides footwear with eucalyptus tree fiber, as well as a flip-flop collection made of bioplastic foam from sugar cane.
Bachan’s
A food and beverage company that produces traditional Japanese barbecue sauce. The company’s sauce is cold-filled, non-pasteurized, so there are no preservatives or added flavorings. The sauce could be used as a marinade on meat, fish, veggies, and rice or also be consumed as dips for sausages and fries, enabling consumers to get a taste of tradition with this umami-filled sauce.
Big Bold Health
The Himalayan Tartary Buckwheat Company. With each new study and headline about the future of immune science, Himalayan Tartary Buckwheat looks like a winner. The nutritional profile of this particular species of buckwheat, and its generous levels of key phytonutrients like quercetin and rutin, is without peer. These nutrients result in improving immune function through their influence on the epigenetic remodeling of the immune system and therefore don’t just “support” immune function, but rather rejuvenate it. Dr. Jeff Bland, father of functional medicine, could never have known that they would find Himalayan Tartary Buckwheat at the exact moment when the world’s attention would shift to global immunity. But they did, and now they are bringing it to you.
Brightseed
Brightseed’s Forager® is the world’s first and only artificial intelligence to map millions of bioactive natural compounds and make new connections between the natural world and human health. Forager has analyzed over 700,000 compounds for their health properties and is on track to surpass 10 million by 2025. Their science team leverages the most advanced computational biology and plant processing techniques to develop “molecular signatures” of plants in the edible and medicinal plant kingdom.
Data World
An enterprise data catalog for the modern data stack. Their cloud-native SaaS platform combines a consumer-grade user experience with a powerful knowledge graph to deliver enhanced data discovery, agile data governance, and actionable insights. A data catalog is a metadata management tool that companies use to inventory and organize the data within their systems. Typical benefits include improvements to data discovery, governance, and access.
Meati
Producer of plant-based food products intended to act as a sustainable alternative to meat. The company specializes in the production of fungi-based steaks that are minimally processed and made from natural ingredients using a fermentation process and are free from any kind of common allergens, thereby providing consumers with vegan food choices.
Forager
A family-owned and operated organic food company, Forage believes that the food we eat is as important as the air we breathe, so their mission is to improve human and planet health by making organic, plant-based whole foods.
Good Counsel
Good Counsel is a developer of an online menswear selling platform used to create a community that embraces men of a larger size. It is an online styling service that delivers a truly personalized shopping experience. Its platform provides fashion consultation and special shopping requests in menswear for the big and tall community, helping men to live well, dress well, and to do so with purpose.
A Pup Above
A Pup Above was created to make it super simple to know what’s in your dog’s bowl. They are also dedicated to making food more sustainable so it’s better for humans, pups, and the planet. Which means, taking into account ethics during every phase of a product’s lifecycle—from packaging design and ingredient sourcing to how the product is sold. They are into recycled packaging, upcycling when possible, and sourcing from farmers with strict animal welfare standards.
Hungry
A food-tech catering company that connects customers to chefs and delivers fresh food from these chefs to the customers. The menu ranges from seasonally-inspired salads and custom burger stations to modern takes on classic sandwiches and culturally-diverse dishes.
Kettle & Fire
A food and beverage company that combines marrow bones with organic vegetables and filtered water in steel kettles. The mixture is slow-simmered for 20-24 hours at 130 F. This provides enough time for nutrients, collagen, and amino acids to soak into the broth. They only use bones from grass-fed, grass-finished organic cows and pasture-raised chickens. Kettle & Fire maintains strict standards to deliver bone broth made from the bones of cattle that are humanely raised, with no antibiotics or hormones, 100% grass-fed and grass-finished.
Once Upon A Farm
Sources and produces cold-pressed and organic baby products. It offers mango and pears flavored food to babies aged above five months; veggie, avocado, blueberry, and green kale and apple flavored food products to babies aged above seven months; strawberry, carrot and coconut, and porridge flavored products for babies aged above nine months; and chocolate and other flavored products for babies aged above 18 months.
Sweetgreen
A fast casual restaurant chain that serves simple, seasonal, healthy salads and grain bowls. The Company sources from farmers that use organic and conventional methods. It favors simple recipes with natural flavors and uses natural sweeteners honey and agave to add some sweetness.
Taika
A food and beverage company that produces ready-to-drink, adaptogen-infused beverages, designed to keep you calm, focused and clear. Functional, healthy and amazingly delicious.