5 Good Food Highlights from 2018
2018 has been a year of exciting moments for Good Food in Arizona! Here are five of our favorites:
1. Food & Farm Forum
Despite the early May heatwave and 104°F temperatures, hundreds of Arizonans STILL came out, wearing smiles, to the Food & Farm Forum in Gilbert. We are resilient. Watching people meet each other and build trust made the braving the temperature well worth it. We love looking back at the videos from that event, we have dozens of clips just like this one, with people smiling, brainstorming, and growing together:
2. Ajo CSA Instagram Takeover
In July, the Ajo Center for Sustainable Agriculture took over the @GoodFoodAZ instagram and shared a week’s worth of amazing pictures of the important work they do. They also had the most seen #GoodFoodAZ Instagram post this year – which showcased an awesome collaboration between local farmers, a chef, and eaters! Check it out:
3. Farmer + Chef Connection
This year’s Farmer + Chef Connection sparked connections between Arizona’s food producers and buyers, as well as some new partnerships among the vendors themselves. Here’s what Francis Stennis of Sassy Cones had to say: “This was my first time attending Farmer + Chef Connection. I had a blast and I can’t wait to come back again. I met so many wonderful vendors and distributors. I made a lot of new connections with businesses who shared ideas with me for my business.”
The event was also full of unique products, showing the incredible variety of good food being crafted in Arizona each year. Read more about the exciting foods featured at the event here.
4. Arizona Fall Fest
This year at Arizona Fall Fest we made seed bombs with visitors to the Good Food Finder table and helped them learn to navigate Good Food Finder online. Curious about seed bombs? Learn more on our Instagram.
5. Dining for Dreams
We closed out the year with an event that showed the importance of Local First Arizona Foundation’s work through our favorite medium: a delicious meal. Localists came to a dinner cooked by three of the Fuerza Local business accelerator’s current students. One attendee told us, “My partner and I attended Dining for Dreams and it was incredibly enjoyable. The food blew me away, but the whole event was lovely. It was really cool to learn about what is going on with the Fuerza Local Commercial Kitchen. I really hope you’ll do this again!”
We can safely say that we plan to!