Food entrepreneurs innovate, collaborate with Cornell

For food entrepreneurs, the bitter battles between small and large companies are increasingly giving way to collaboration in the quest for better-tasting, high-quality food. Companies of all sizes are finding synergies in the face of consumer demand for locally grown, healthy food, and they are looking to food science researchers at Cornell for support. That's according to leading food entrepreneurs who took part on the panel Advancing Food Entrepreneurship April 28 at the Statler Hotel, part of the Entrepreneurship at Cornell Celebration conference. According to the panelists, food companies are competing to create innovative products as consumers increasingly choose products that are healthy, flavorful and contain ingredients that can be traced to a local source. Smaller companies are finding beneficial partnerships with established brands, as food entrepreneurs scale up to meet consumer demand. 'The food and beverage category can be a crowded and competitive place,' said Julie Stafford, industry liaison officer of the Cornell Institute for Food Systems Industry Partnership Program (CIFS-IPP), who moderated the panel. 'We are seeing that it is no longer small companies versus large companies; instead, it is small and large companies working together, especially when the smaller companies realize success and must scale up to meet increasing demand.' Christopher Kirby '15, founder and president of Ithaca Hummus, experienced this consumer demand for healthy food options firsthand when he began expanding his hummus outreach.