“Home Grown: How Place, Culture, and Policy Are Shaping the Future of Food Waste in North Carolina—and Beyond”

Welcome to North Carolina, a state with a food story that is richer, more complex, and instructive than most. This session uses North Carolina as a lens through which to examine food waste from angles that rarely share the same stage: we’ll share research on household food waste patterns across the state; shine a spotlight on Black farmers and cultural foodways and the role of heritage and community food traditions in shaping the broader food system; and host a conversation about how new policies ripple through food culture—and how food culture, in turn, shapes what becomes politically possible. From farm to kitchen to community table, North Carolina offers a vivid illustration of how place-based knowledge, cultural identity, and policy momentum can reinforce or undermine one another—and how you can move the needle when you take the whole picture into account. Also during this mainstage session, we’ll introduce a panel of founders/CEOs to the stage who will share candid reflections on what it took to grow their solutions from early-stage ideas into mainstream impact—offering hard-won lessons on how innovation and investment align for success.