First in Future: Principal Founder of Community Food Lab Erin White

Summary: Agriculture is an $84B industry in North Carolina that supports more than 600,000 jobs. North Carolina has set a goal of growing that industry by 20% in the next few years. Part of that goal will have to be buying more local food and right now less than 1% of our food dollars stays in North Carolina. So buying more local gets those dollars circulating around in our economy and that helps everyone.

This week’s First In Future Guest is Erin White, the principal founder of the Community Food Lab (communityfoodlab.org), which is an ambitious effort to build a Triangle-wide food system working with and for farmers and foodies to bring together rural and urban people into a dialogue about their shared interests. Listen as we learn the fascinating life story of Erin moving from being a farm manager at a camp to construction work to an architect to a chef and now head of the Community Food Lab.

Community Food Lab one of the five efforts that the Institute for Emerging Issues will be featuring at our Forum on Connecting Rural and Urban.

If you want to learn more, please attend our Forum on Connecting Rural and Urban and go to our website emergingissues.org to sign up. We promise you an exciting day, with conversations about transportation connections, affordable housing, workforce development, economic development, opioids and behavioral health, culture and recreation and Erin will be there talking about the critical role of food systems.  

Listen to the podcast: