Episode 1: Raj Patel on Food Sovereignty

Episode #2 Notes

1:00 - What led you into the food industry?

3:30 - How did your family influence your career trajectory?

5:30 - What did you study in college?

7:30 - What were some of your initial experience working your way up a large food company?

9:50 - Did you feel like you faced additional challenges as a woman of color in the food industry?

13:45 - How do you think the natural products industry got so white? And what do we need to do to change that?

26:30 - Do you think the diversity, inclusion, and equity policies that have been applied to some procurement departments can ultimately help black farmers who have been disenfranchised?

33:30 - What inspired you to move into Organic foods?

37:45 - Under you leadership at General Mills, it embraced regenerative agriculture and responsiveness to climate change. How did you hustle that?

43:15 - What kinds of impacts do you think these progressive policies around sustainability was General Mills hoping to have?

48:45 - Are you seeing other players evolve along these same lines towards more sustainability and regenerative practices?

51:30 - How do you think large food companies are responding to a greater need for food security and food access in the COVID landscape?

57:00 - You’ve been a visible Black Lives Matter supporter at a high level in the food industry. How has this been received by your peer group in the food industry?

103:00 - Black people have been historically disenfranchised by the food system. What does a food system designed by Carla Vernon look like?

110:00 - What are three things you would recommend to a food industry leader to reverse the legacy of inequity and injustice in the food system?

114:00 - What’s on your reading list?