Joe and guest host Michelle Lerach of the Berry Good Food Foundation to interviewed guest from the Re-imagining Food Waste: Future Thought Leaders panel discussion. The event was held on August 23 and sponsored by the Berry Good Food Foundation and feature guest with backgrounds in health, feeding those less fortunate, reducing food waste and community service.

Ylfa Muindi is an educator with 1to1 Movement’s Away and Stacked mobile classrooms. She is also a puppeteer, and avid bird watcher newly arrived from Chicago. Ylfa has served as an educator and guest faculty at institutions including Luther College, Forest Preserves of Cook County, Lincoln Park Zoo, and the Chicago Park District. When she isn’t teaching youth about how they can help our communities become more sustainable, she’s building life-size animal puppets out of trash (of which the giant squid is her personal favorite).

Jennifer Gilmore has been working in hunger relief for more than a decade. Gilmore joined Feeding America San Diego (FASD) as the Director of Operations and the organization’s second employee in 2007. Jennifer served five years as the organization’s Executive Director. Under her leadership, FASD, whose services reach 460,000 food insecure individuals each year, expanded emergency food distribution by 600% and grew philanthropic revenue from $1.2 million to $5.4 million annually. Jennifer is Executive director of Kitchen’s for Good and a Board Member of the San Diego Hunger Coalition.

Maria Hesse is a personal chef, designer, and writer in San Diego. After working for small and large scale restaurants for over 10 years, Maria became a personal chef to gain a greater understanding of the challenges we face with our current food system. Observing food waste in restaurants and people’s homes has given her insight into ways that we can effectively reduce food waste in both commercial and personal kitchens. Maria regularly gives personal cooking lessons and demonstrations, sharing tips for healthier eating, and creative ways to prepare vegetables–especially those that seem challenging and often go to waste. She is a co-author of The Intentionalist Cooks!, and a freelance writer for Edible San Diego.

Heather Dane is a health Coach and 21st-century medicine woman. She combines ancient wisdom from her Native American lineage with holistic health and nutrition training to offer the cutting edge prescriptive remedies for your health. She has co-authored two books with Louise Hay: Loving Yourself to Great Health and The Bone Broth Secret: A Culinary Adventure in Health, Beauty, and Longevity. Heather also has two health and nutrition radio shows: Loving Yourself to Great Health on Hay House Radio, and the Price-Pottenger Nutrition Foundation Show.

Allie Tarantino is a dispatcher at Specialty Produce. Specialty Produce is a wholesale produce distributor that works with over 800 accounts all over San Diego County. Specialty Produce has partnered with the San Diego Food Bank to create Waste Not San Diego. They provide participating restaurants with boxes and trays to be filled with surplus prepared foods and then pick up the donations when they make a produce delivery. They bring the donations back to Specialty Produce warehouse where it’s picked up by one of their nonprofit partners.

Kevin G. Davis is principal at GreenCore Capital and a clean technology investor and pioneer. Kevin brings to GreenCore Capital a lifelong passion for building companies around sustainable systems and renewable resources. He is focused on sustainable service and transportation businesses across industries and serves as an active advisor to the chief executives of portfolio companies Envision Solar and Noble Environmental Technologies. Before his clean tech career, Kevin spent several years active in government and politics, including time on Capitol Hill with Congressman Bilbray and serving deputy finance director roles for campaigns of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and the presidential campaigns of Senator John McCain and Mitt Romney. He has been supporting the enterprising ideas of elected officials and candidates ever since.

Noel Stehly is co-owner of Stehly Farms Organics, Stehly Farms Market, and Stehly Ranch. He is a 3rd generation CA farmer, and 2nd gen. San Diegan. Noel is also the former President of the San Diego Farm Bureau.

Chris Young is the founder of Closing the Loop SD Closing the Loop provides an integrated, zero waste recycling solution to homes and businesses. This includes food waste, recycling, and cooking oil. From this, we produce animal feed, energy, and raw materials for manufacturing.

Listen to a podcast of The Expert Panel’s interview!
Listen to a podcast of Ylfa Muindi’s interview!
Listen to a podcast of Jennifer Gilmore’s interview!
Listen to a podcast of Maria Hesse and Heather Dane’s interview!
Listen to a podcast of Allie Tarantino’s interview!
Listen to a podcast of Kevin Davis’s interview!
Listen to a podcast of Noel Stehly’s interview!
Listen to a podcast of Chris Young’s interview!