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.

