About

The Food to Market Challenge will award $500,000 to the multidisciplinary team that designs the most innovative solution to re-conceive supply chain practices that today limit the scale or efficiency of the Chicago region’s local and sustainable food market.

The solution will address the problem of size as a marketplace barrier for burgeoning local food enterprises. The solution will be feasible to implement; can be sustained or grow even after funding from the challenge ends; and advance the charitable purposes of Food:Land:Opportunity  to create a resilient local food economy that protects and conserves land and other natural resources while promoting market innovation and building wealth and assets in the Chicago region’s communities. 

The winning team will receive $500,000 to implement its proposed solution, but the intended outcome of the competition goes beyond naming a winner. The challenge seeks to create a common framework for assessing and investing in innovative ideas, attract new talent to the local and sustainable food sector, realize solutions that would not emerge through traditional grant making or without philanthropic capital, and convene an influential community committed to improving the Chicago region’s local and sustainable food economy.

About Food:Land:Opportunity 
Funded through the Searle Funds at The Chicago Community Trust, Food:Land:Opportunity is a collaboration between Kinship Foundation and The Chicago Community Trust that aims to create a resilient local food economy that protects and conserves land and other natural resources while promoting market innovation and building wealth and assets in the Chicago region’s communities. Food:Land:Opportunity catalyzes efforts to increase land for sustainable production, strengthen local food business practices, and attract capital to the local food system.