JULY 21 • 2022 | 17
has equal or equitable access to
the healthful foods needed to
lead a healthy life.
“We founded the Fair Food
Network to address these
issues and creative positive
solutions and models that can
show how we can work with
our food system differently,”
Hesterman explains.
Started as just an idea, Fair
Food Network now operates
with 40 staff and programs
that reach across nearly every
community in the state of
Michigan. Nationally, it also
helped create policy change
that brings resources to
low-income families.
“We’ve been able to establish
an impact investing fund that
is supporting entrepreneurs
across the state and in other
pockets in the country, all being
done with a real dedicated and talent-
ed staff mostly right here in Michigan,”
Hesterman says.
A MULTIFACETED APPROACH
To do so, Fair Food Network taps into
three strategies.
First, they invest in local businesses. A
recent investment, for example, helped
support Detroit-based food business
Cooking with Que, which brought
healthy meals to essential workers in the
city of Detroit during the heart of the
COVID-19 pandemic.
“Not only was Cooking with Que able
to survive, but really thrive as a business,”
Hesterman says of the investment and
the impact the pandemic had on the food
industry.
The second strategy Fair Food Network
practices is to build collaborative rela-
tionships with local and national organi-
zations.
Through Double Up Food Bucks, a
nutrition incentive program that allows
any individual with SNAP benefits to
double their buying power at participat-
ing locations — a whopping 759,000 fam-
ilies received benefits in 2021.
“It’s a win-win-win,” Hesterman says of
the Double Up Food Bucks partnership,
among others.
“It’s more healthy food coming home
for families that need it, with those very
food dollars going into the pockets of
local farmers and local food businesses.”
Lastly, Fair Food Network implements
a third strategy of championing and
changing food policy solutions across the
country. These policies help ensure that
federal dollars offer improved benefits for
the community while supporting essential
ideas and programs.
Through recent policy solutions, Fair
Food Network has been an important
part in implementing nutrition incentive
programs at farmers’ markets and grocery
stores nationwide.
“We’re very proud of the policy work
we’ve been able to do,” Hesterman says.
NEW GENERATION OF LEADERSHIP
Now, with inflation on the rise, it’s one
of the main areas of focus for the Fair
Food Network, in addition to a rising
number of households receiving food
assistance.
As the nonprofit looks to the future and
how it can continue to address critical
food issues, current executive director and
chief operating officer Kate Krauss will
step into a new role as chief executive offi-
cer of Fair Food Network in January 2023.
Hesterman will transition into a sup-
porting role as founder and resident
champion.
“I’ve decided it’s time in my own
personal life to shift my role and make
way for a new generation of leadership,”
Hesterman explains. “I’ll be championing
the abilities and the rise of young leaders
all over the country [involved] in this
movement.”
Hesterman says Fair Food Network will
place an increased focus on climate solu-
tions and on meeting a growing demand
for food assistance.
“There will be a deeper effort on the
part of the Fair Food Network to help
mitigate what we know is a crisis,” he
explains.
Still, the idea of repairing the world
— especially through food — isn’t going
away.
“When we start with food, we can build
a path toward better community health
and economic opportunity, as well as envi-
ronmental resistance,” Hesterman says.
“I like to think of the food economy as
the first economy in every community.”
Oran Hesterman and Kate Krauss of Fair Food Network at a local farmer’s market.