S2: Hopeful Harvest with Chris Nemeth serving Detroit Food Manufacturing#44

  Chris Nemeth of Hopeful Harvest   Romy interviews Chris Nemeth of social enterprise Hopeful Harvest on Season 2 episode.  Chris gives an important look inside his operation and openly discusses the challenges of launching this type of endeavor and the challenges that arrive when growth happens quickly. Learn about his grand plans, the broader partnership with Forgotten Harvest, and how he has overcome by serving the food entrepreneurs in Detroit.   Full transcript: Romy: Hey, thanks for tuning in. This is Romy. I’ll be your host for this episode of the Bonfires of Social Enterprise. Today, I’m interviewing Chris Nemeth in Oak Park, Michigan, which is just outside the border of Detroit. Hopeful Harvest is a food manufacturing company that helps food entrepreneurs with some of the “bottlenecks” to production when you’re just starting out. You’ll learn how Chris came up with the idea to begin to use the facility and how he grew so quickly and what some of the barriers are he’s facing today. It’s a very interesting story. Before we meet our future guest, we have a little something called the Fun Facts Fuel. Jentzen: Hey, everyone. This is Jentzen. I have some fun fuel to spark this episode. Chris from Hopeful Harvest inspired me to check out some history on some of the first types of food manufacturing. Before I tell you what I found, I have a little fun fact about chickens. Did you know wild chickens naturally produce roughly 15 eggs per year? However, farmers have bred chickens to lay 200 to 300 eggs per year. Wow, fascinating. Now, back to my fun fuel. Today, I would like to share with you the top 10 most significant inventions in food and drink according to Megan Garber in the September 14, 2012, article in the Atlantic magazine. Okay. Here we go with the top 10. Number 10, the plow. Number 9, grinding and milling. Number 8, selective breeding. Number 7, the process of baking. Number 6, the threshing machine. Number 5, irrigation. Number 4, the oven. Number 3, the process of canning. Number 2, the process of pasteurization and sterilization. The number 1 food and drink invention was the refrigerator. All right. That’s all, folks. Hope you enjoy the show. Romy: Thank you, Jentzen. I want to give a shout out now to all of our patrons that are supporting us on Patreon. We appreciate you. If you’d like to support us on Patreon, please go to our website for the link to great supplemental content and connections. All right. Let’s listen in to my interview with Chris Nemeth of Hopeful Harvest. Welcome, Chris. Would you begin by telling us about Hopeful Harvest? Chris: Thank you very much. Hopeful Harvest is a for-profit social enterprise that is an outgrowth from Forgotten Harvest, our non-profit. Forgotten Harvest is 1 of the largest fresh food rescue operations in the United States. We have 35 trucks that go out every day, six days a week, rescue fresh, healthy food from over 800 retail outlets. Then, we turn around and deliver that food to over 283 agencies throughout the metropolitan...