Improving the food system one bite at a time

Dear RFRS Community Member,

Biting into a Gold Dust peach at the Masumoto Family Farm was nothing short of magical. So we were saddened to learn that this incredibly delicious variety of peach might never see a restaurant plate or a kitchen table, because supermarkets and popular culture had deemed it too small for consumption.

We're "trained to eat with our eyes," explained Nikiko Masumoto, fourth-generation farmer at Masumoto Family Farm, when she reached out to us to find an audience for this undeservingly unpopular fruit. Nikiko, as one of our featured storytellers in 2016, knew that part of our mission is to be a catalyst for improving our local food system.

Together, we brought volunteers to help harvest the fruit and reached out to our contacts in the food industry to find homes for over 1,000 lbs of the misfit peaches. This was the very definition of a grassroots movement supporting sustainable agriculture. The Masumoto Family is part of a small group of farms that is doing something very different: growing heirloom varieties that don't have a ready market and harvesting the fruit only if food purchasers can pay to support fair wages for the farm workers. It's the kind of accountability and commitment to quality that exemplifies our vision for the food system.

In the end, we partnered with Airbnb, Google, Kitchentown, Stanford University, and State Bird Provisions to bring the Gold Dust peach to local tables. And for the first time in six years, this beautiful heirloom peach didn't end up in the compost bin, challenging a small but significant part of the produce market paradigm. 

It's local stories like these that inspire us to act. We invite you to join us in improving our food system one bite at a time.

Give Now

Please help us support similar food system actions like this by contributing to our #WeTheEaters year-end fundraising campaign.

With gratitude,
The RFRS Team

View WE THE EATERS Campaign Page

Homage to a Storyteller

Dear RFRS Community Member,

Storytelling is what Real Food Real Stories is all about.

When we hear stories from the people behind our food, they can inspire us to change our relationship with what we eat. These stories bring us back to the roots of our food system and offer us a rare window into the industry's inner workings that are often hidden from view.

At our recent StorySlam benefit, Nik Sharma shared an honest and touching story about his experience growing up in India, moving to America, and entering the world of food journalism as a person of color. It was a poignant reminder of the systemic challenges of equality within our broader food culture. And the response from our community was overwhelming.

The day after our StorySlam, Nik received over a hundred emails thanking him for sharing his perspective and celebrating his courage for delivering it so vulnerably to a crowd of over 350 people.

It's stories like Nik's, and platforms like our StorySlam, that exemplify Real Food Real Stories' mission to humanize the food movement. Every day, we work to amplify the unheard voices in food and to create a safe and open forum for sharing personal insights from the Bay Area's most innovative and interesting food-folks.

Please help us support storytelling like this by contributing to our #WeTheEaters year-end fundraising campaign:

Give Now

We welcome your individual donations and your support in joining our superstar team of inspired community members who are fundraising on behalf of RFRS.

We also invite you to listen to our other storytellers in our StorySlam Podcast Part 2 including Erin Gleeson of Forest Feast, Keba Konte of Red Bay Coffee, Yoni Levy Chef of Outerlands and Margo True editor of Sunset Magazine.

StorySlam Podcast #2

Thank you for helping us bring Real Food Real Stories to more people. We are so fortunate to have a community that values the sweet, salty, real stories behind the faces of our food.

With gratitude,
The RFRS Team

Spice Mama Supperclub Reflection

This reflection comes to us today from our new intern and former volunteer, Natalia Gomez. After volunteering for our first annual StorySlam, she wanted to get more involved. This was her take on her first gathering with us. 

The Real Food Real Stories’ Supperclub featuring Sylvie, owner and founder of Spice Mama went above and beyond my expectations. This was my second time attending a RFRS event. The first event was Benefit Storyslam Salty and Sweet edition hosted at Airbnb headquarters. The storyslam had roughly 300 attendees, multiple food vendors, and several inspiring storytellers. The supperclub had about 50 attendees, one storyteller, Sylvie, who also impressively cooked the meal for the evening. My first exposure to RFRS was through the large scale event filled with several varieties of food and people, therefore, the intimacy of the supperclub was truly unique and heartwarming.

The evening gathering took place in a lovely apartment in a high rise in SoMa with beautiful views of downtown San Francisco. The open layout of the home brought everyone together in one large room, where the storytelling and food sharing occurred. I arrived an hour before the event began to lend a helping hand. I walked in and found Sylvie working hard in the kitchen. Her dishes had my mouth watering from the second I laid eyes on them. The aroma of her spices mixing in the warm kitchen made me want to take all of her sauces home with me!

There was about an hour of socializing as people arrived to the event and then after we all lined up for dinner. Each guest sat on the floor on small pillows close together. The atmosphere felt unified and people were extremely appreciative of the meal Sylvie put time and work into. After most people were finished, the storytelling began. Sylvie began by thanking everyone and then went into opening up about her family, her health history, and her business. Hearing her speak so vulnerably about her personal experiences truly inspired the entire room. She also did an excellent job at integrating food with specific parts of her story. She reflected on a specific soup that her mom made for her and it’s comforting, simple components. While she described the soup and it’s significance we distributed small cups filled with it to all the guests. This allowed us to all connect with her through listening and tasting. The storytelling finished and then an open discussion began inviting guests to ask Sylvie questions .

Once the storytelling part finished, everyone said their goodbyes and were asked to fill out feedback cards.When they submitted their cards they received one of Sylvie’s amazing cookies in return. I stayed after to help transform the space back into Peiru’s home. This was a neat opportunity to be able to have seen the event from the very start all the way until the end. I was able to hear the immediate thoughts from the hosts and Sylvie herself.

My first Supperclub experience has me already excited for the next. I’m hooked. It was such a special space with new faces sharing food and personal narratives with one another. I felt the same feelings I do when I return home for the holidays with family. RFRS does a phenomenal job at cultivating a warm and welcoming atmosphere at both their large and small scale events. I am new to the RFRS community, but in my limited exposure I have already been fed delicious food, heard moving stories, and been enthralled to continue to get more involved.

2017 Community Reflection #4

Dear RFRS Community,

We're excited to share that our #EatSmallFruit campaign got some love and was featured in San Francisco Chronicle this past Sunday! Digital version here. We also want to take a moment to reflect on our experience with you.

As part of our Inspired Action program to rescue the Masumoto Family Farm’s Gold Dust peaches that are deemed "too small" and fragile by the market, members of our community stepped up to find a home for over 1000lbs of this misfit fruit. For the first time in six years, this beautiful heirloom peach variety did not end up in the compost.

// While food waste alternative companies are part of a very quickly growing sector in the food industry, many of which are located in the Bay Area, still, up to 40% of our food goes to waste. This is a serious social, environmental, and economic problem. //

When I bit into a Gold Dust for the first time, with the flesh bursting out of its thin skin and juice sliding down my forearm, my head was dizzy with the nostalgia of a distant taste memory I’d only dreamt about. I wanted everyone I knew to experience this peach’s glory. How could it be that this monumental flavor is left to rot on the tree every year? This is the kind of peach that chefs pay for, that Bay Area foodies would go nuts for, that children will ask for, and that we could easily figure out a way to share it, right?

// Food distribution is a multi-billion dollar industry that selects for us consumers what food we have access to, often based on shelf-stability, size, and other market preferences. Michael Pollan and Dan Barber have written extensively on how most Americans are eating relatively flavorless and nutrition-less food based on this current system. //

Organizing this experimental campaign was a crash course on what it takes to really support sustainable agriculture: to directly interact with the people who cultivate the food that feeds our bodies and souls. The Masumoto Family is part of a small group of farms that are doing something different: growing heirloom varieties that don't have a ready market and harvesting the fruit only if food purchasers can pay to support fair wages for the farmworkers. 

We were frustrated to see just how broken is the dominating system, and initially, it was challenging to find food institutions who are willing to pay $2.75-$3/lb for a small fruit that they've never tasted. We are grateful for Airbnb, Google SF, Kitchentown, Stanford University, State Bird Provision to take a leap of faith on us.

We were frustrated to see how we’re slowly losing these taste memories from our past. And yet at the same time, we were incredibly uplifted to find volunteer ambassadors who wanted to connect deeper with their food, their farmers, and their local food purveyors. We were reminded this is what we are working for: for the day when real food is celebrated for its flavor over size, when farmers are supported to experiment and grow for excellence and nourishment, and when eaters can participate at the center of the food chain.

We hope you will continue to participate in this cultural shift with us. 

In the wake of Amazon buying WholeFoods, a lot of questions have come up around the future of how Americans will purchase their food and where it may come from. Next Monday, our timely live storytelling gathering features two owners of SF-based Veritable Vegetable, the nation’s oldest distributor of organic produce. (Gathering information here) We are thrilled to hear the story behind a company that started providing access to organic produce before people even knew what “organic” meant. We look forward to examining this and many other issues around how we come to eat the food that’s available to us.

Sincerely,
Pei-Ru Ko