5th Annual Babson Food Day celebrates 'good food innovation'

BABSON PARK, Massachusetts - Every October, Babson Food Day brings people together to share and discuss delicious meals and push for better food policies.

The two day event held October 20-21 showcased the power of entrepreneurship to positively influence how eaters think about, select, and consume food.

Food Sol, an action tank which creates spaces for eater-entrepreneurs to uncover and articulate what they care most about when it comes to food, organized the event. Celebrity chefs talked dining innovation, business leaders discussed the future of food, thought leaders shared their food stories, entrepreneurs showcased their products over lunch, and four Babson food entrepreneurs participated in the Quick Service Incubator.

Sodexo, dining services partner on campus, hosted a luncheon for Food Day serving more than 1,200 attendees.

The menu created by Chef R. Damian Zedower promoted local ingredients featuring New England Family Farms Cider Glazed Pork Loin with Bacon Barley, New England Family Farm Steak & Black Bean Chili, Great Hill Blue Cheese and produce from Wilson Farm and Volante Farm.

Sodexo Chefs from around the region arrived to support the event making thousands of hand-made squash tortellini.

“Cooking with passion and seasonal, local, fresh ingredients is contagious and the proof is in the tortellini,” said Chef Zedower.

Students, faculty and staff alike enjoyed and embraced Babson Food Day including food entrepreneurs-in-residence Gail Simmons, Top Chef and Andrew Zimmern, Bizarre Foods.

“For the past five years, Babson has celebrated Food Day and Sodexo has gone above and beyond to contribute to it by tailoring an exquisite locally-sourced, sustainable lunch for the whole campus and special VIP reception for a cohort of Food Sol and Babson’s biggest supporters,” said Rachel Greenberger, director of Food Sol at Babson College. “This year, under the leadership of Jason LaPrade, the Babson Dining team truly outdid themselves.”

“Everything was fresh, delicious, colorful, mindful—totally in alignment with what we at Food Sol try to influence when it comes to understanding the food system and the role that entrepreneurs play within it. We could not have been more pleased,” said Greenberger.

About Babson College

Babson College is the educator, convener, and thought leader for Entrepreneurship of All Kinds®. The top-ranked college for entrepreneurship education, Babson is a dynamic living and learning laboratory where students, faculty, and staff work together to address the real-world problems of business and society. We prepare the entrepreneurial leaders our world needs most: those with strong functional knowledge and the skills and vision to navigate change, accommodate ambiguity, surmount complexity, and motivate teams in a common purpose to make a difference in the world, and have an impact on organizations of all sizes and types. As we have for nearly a half-century, Babson continues to advance Entrepreneurial Thought and Action® as the most positive force on the planet for generating sustainable economic and social value.