Minnesota

"The shared use kitchen sector is, in some sense, a public service that caters to the needs of the local community," explains Jason. "Whether that need is geared towards serving a specific ethnic group, whether it's meant to be affordable kitchen access for startup food businesses, or for scaling businesses that need more warehouse and fulfillment space."

An especially unique attribute of the Forever Green Initiative is its focus on commercialization, adoption and scaling. “Broadly speaking, we think of three areas of work: strategy, landscape, and market,” explained Colin. “We need many businesses sourcing these crops, making products and moving them to consumers, either as ingredients or as finished products.”

“Bringing an entirely new crop out into the world while making it something that people can easily become familiar with and start to use is fundamentally a very hopeful act,” observed Christopher Abbott of Perennial Pantry.

River Rock Kitchen & Baking Co’s local community impact starts with sourcing. Under Montana’s leadership, the bakery sources their ingredients from more than a dozen farms, mills, and cooperatives in Minnesota, Iowa, and Wisconsin.

Freshly opened in June 2024, Half Pint Coffee Company brings a new coffee house to downtown Walnut Grove. The menu includes a full coffee bar featuring Half Pint Coffee Co’s freshly roasted beans along with baked treats, smoothies, teas and hand scooped ice cream.

On a rise in southern Minnesota that Rachel Davis’ ancestors called Poverty Knob, Kalvin, Rachel and their two young children (soon to be three in January!) raise a myriad of mushrooms at their ten acre solar- powered farm.