40 Big Food Thinkers 40 and Under
Tastemaker Categories
Food Products & Artisans
Brett Beach & Tim McCollum: Bean-to-Bar Chocolate Makers
After doing volunteer stints in Madagascar, Beach, 35, and McCollum, 33, returned in 2008 to found Madécasse, a chocolate company in which every step of the process—not only cultivation but also packaging and distribution—is done locally...more
Siggi Hilmarsson: Icelandic Yogurt-Maker
How often can one man claim to have brought a whole new food to the US? Iceland native Hilmarsson, 34, started making skyr—the thick, tangy yogurt of his homeland—and single-handedly popularized it across America...more
Michael Kirban & Ira Liran: Coconut Water Popularizers
In the span of a few years, childhood friends Kirban (photo), 35, and Liran, 32, took coconut water—a super-nutritious, low-calorie drink—and turned it into Vita Coco, the biggest company in the category, with celebrity investors like Madonna...more
Matt Jennings: Chef && Cheesemaker
Lots of chefs make their own ricotta or chèvre, but few have gone as far or as deep as Jennings, 34. Not only does he run an excellent cheese shop (Farmstead) and a bistro (La Laiterie) in Providence, Rhode Island, he also regularly collaborates with small farms...more
Emily Olson && Rob LaFave: Online Food Scouts
When they launched Foodzie, a website connecting thousands of food artisans to customers, Olson, 26, and LaFave, 27, created the world's biggest online food market...more
Jeremy Tooker: Coffee Craftsman
Coffee's rising star, Tooker, 31, launched Four Barrel in San Francisco in 2008 and quickly started supplying prestigious restaurants like New York City's Maialino...more
Compared to processed tofu, the artisanal kind has an entirely different flavor—and Tsai, 39, is on a mission to prove it. He began selling his fresh-that-day tofu at the Palo Alto, California, farmers' market in 2004...more
Wine, Beer & Spirits
Charles Bieler: Wine Collaborator
A visionary marketer and compulsive collaborator, Bieler, 35, takes what could be pure gimmick—selling good Cabernet in a screw-top jug, for example—and turns it into a bona fide opportunity for worthy wines...more
Tracey Brandt: Urban Winemaker
By experimenting with novel techniques—like making wine using grapes growing wild on abandoned vineyard land—Brandt, 40, and her husband, Jared, are helping to change the way wine is made. They're also changing where it's made...more
Matthew Cain: Eco-Wine Importer
Each carton of Yellow+Blue wine Cain sells has a carbon footprint half that of the average bottle. Cain, 40, who has worked for renowned wine importer Kermit Lynch, sources high-quality organic wine from around the world...more
A third-generation distiller, the 33-year-old Cooper is one of the most influential spirits makers in the country. His deliciously subtle St-Germain elderflower liqueur—made with petals picked by hand each spring in the French Alps—permanently altered the cocktail menus at bars everywhere...more
Christian Ettinger: Organic Brewmaster
Portland, Oregon, has long been known for both craft beer and eco-consciousness. Now Ettinger, 37, is combining them: The former brewmaster of Laurelwood, he launched his own organic craft brewery, Hopworks, in 2008—it's a 10,000-square-foot, biodiesel-powered facility...more
Triemert, 36, helped rewrite Nebraska's Prohibition-era liquor laws to open the doors to craft brewers and spirits distillers alike. He makes his vodka, Joss, with organic Nebraska wheat and filtered water from the Ogallala aquifer...more
Brokers of Responsible Eating
Annemarie Ahearn: Farm-to-Table Teacher
The 29-year-old Ahearn created her cooking school, Salt Water Farm, on the Maine coast as a playland for DIY cooks. Guests can learn how to butcher pigs, infuse vodka and pickle vegetables...more
Nicolas Jammet, Nathaniel Ru & Jonathan Neman: Eco-Salad-Chain Founders
...The restaurants run on wind energy, source local ingredients and send a fuel-efficient truck around the city selling organic frozen yogurt...more
Robert Litt: Urban-Farm Pioneer
When he opened the quirky Urban Farm Store last year in Portland, Oregon, the 39-year-old Litt officially became a trailblazer in the urban-homesteading movement...more
Chris Parachini & Brandon Hoy: Locavore Leaders
Parachini, 38, and Hoy, 33, founded Roberta's not only as a Brooklyn restaurant but also as an incubator for other locavore projects. These include the biggest rooftop farm in New York City...more
Making a Statement: Food Movements, Art & Charity
Anya Fernald: Slow-Food Activist
...Now the founder of the consulting firm Live Culture Company, she helps small-scale artisans expand their businesses while following principles of sustainability...more
Sam Kass: White House Food-Policy Adviser
Within three years, the 31-year-old Kass went from being the Obama family's chef to an unprecedented White House role that's a combination of chef, gardener, educator and policy adviser...more
Anthony Myint & Danny Bowien: Charitable Chefs
Myint, 32, founded Mission Street Food in San Francisco to raise money for good causes: In its first year, the pop-up restaurant donated more than $20,000 to a local food bank...more
Rubell, 40, creates the kind of interactive experiences that rarely happen at art galleries—like encasing desserts in white balloons that guests have to figure out how to pop...more
Food Entertainiment & Information
Geoff Bartakovics & Nick Fauchald: E-Entrepreneurs
Bartakovics (chief executive, 33) and Fauchald (editor in chief, 31) founded Tasting Table as a food e-newsletter that scouts trends and discovers up-and-coming artisans...more
...Four years ago, the 34-year-old launched his Midtown Lunch website in Manhattan with the belief that a tasty, $10-or-less lunch is every office worker's inalienable right. Now he has thousands of followers...more
Amanda Hesser: Cookbook Author
Hesser, 39, didn't just update the 1961 edition of The Essential New York Times Cookbook; she excavated more than a century's worth of recipes from the newspaper's archives for an account of the evolution of American cooking...more
Kenji Lopez-Alt: Food-Science Whiz
An MIT grad and chef, Lopez-Alt, 31, has earned a fanatical following for his blog, the Food Lab, by demystifying cooking techniques like sous vide (his version involves a plastic cooler)...more
Brendan Newnam & Rico Gagliano: Public Radio Hosts
...At the Dinner Party Download, [Newman] and co-host Gagliano, 40, cover food trends, too—and their hipster podcasts have already been downloaded more than three million times.more
Matt Timms: Contest Impresario
In founding Chili Takedown competitions, Timms, 36, has created a new way for amateur cooks to become part of a food community—through raucous events that are part Pillsbury Bake-Off, part WWE match...more
Style, Beauty & Design
An up-and-coming skincare entrepreneur, the Colombian-born Harper, 35, grows some of her organic ingredients—calendula, lavender, narcissus flower—on her Vermont farm...more
Peter Karpinski: Hotel Restaurateur
A protégé of Philadelphia empire-builder Stephen Starr, Karpinski, 35, of Sage Restaurant Group, is bringing indie style to big hotel restaurants in cities often overlooked by other boutique hoteliers...more
Alison Pincus: Online Housewares Seller
Launched by Pincus, 36, and co-founder Susan Feldman just last year, the website One Kings Lane has registered nearly a million members, who come for 72-hour "tag sales"...more
Since taking over her father's Los Angeles–based importing business and department store a few years ago, the 34-year-old Ro has brought incredible new kitchenwares to the US...more
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