There’s a revolution happening in the food industry, and Danielle Gould is on the front lines.
Six years ago Gould saw a problem: food companies were struggling to adapt to advances in technology, and opportunities for innovation were being missed. Seeking to fill the gap, she launched Food+Tech Connect in 2010, an online hub to unite food producers and digital creators to help food companies become more scalable, sustainable and profitable. What started off as a small news blog reporting on food trends developed into the world’s largest online community for food and tech innovation, tracking food business and investment trends at 5,000 companies worldwide. Offline, as CEO of Food+Tech Connect, Gould travels across continents hosting hackathons, business courses, mentoring seminars and more.
“We give them access to the information they need to build business and organization that help to transform the food industry,” Gould said.
A Maryland native, Gould first nurtured her fervor for food around the Shabbat table. “Growing up, we always had Shabbat dinner together as a family and that really taught me the importance of meals to bring people together,” she said.
Hack//Dining, a hackathon hosted in 2015, convened employees from Google, Chipotle and Applegate to tackle issues including how to make restaurant design and operations more sustainable and how to comply with complex health codes, while strategizing new solutions.
Since 2010, Food+Tech Connect has grown to 25,000 members across the globe with over 4000 local members here in New York.
Gould, who spent three years living in Tel Aviv, where she loved the local foodie scene, said she was inspired by a strong mission of tikkun olam. “Food touches everything and everyone — it’s community, health, culture, art and design,” she said. “It’s an amazing tool through which to change the world.”
Today based in Brooklyn, Gould was dubbed the “Queen Bee of foodtech” by Edible Magazine and is widely considered the go-to expert on food-tech innovation. She regularly consults for big brands and was invited to consult on food policy at the White House.
“It’s all about creating a better future for food,” she finished.
Take a bow: Gould has recently started to experiment with improv. You may just catch her soon on a stage around the city.
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