Fresh Food Connect is thrilled to announce exciting changes to our board of directors, reflecting our growing national presence and broadening scope of work as we enter our next phase of growth.
Founding Board President Turner Wyatt is stepping back from his direct work with Fresh Food Connect, current Board Member Jack Fritzinger will take on the role of Board President, and we welcome three new members.
Turner was instrumental in the successful collaborative pilot of Fresh Food Connect in 2015-2016, our incorporation in 2018, our mobile app release in 2020, and national expansion of the organization. We are deeply grateful to Turner for his nearly 8 years of leadership, innovation and vision, and his work to build a team that will take Fresh Food Connect to the next level. We wish Turner all the best as he embarks on new ventures.
While we are sad to see Turner go, we are overjoyed to welcome Jack as incoming Board President. Since joining our board in 2020, Jack has been an enthusiastic supporter of all things Fresh Food Connect, from strategic planning to hands-on outreach work. Jack’s entrepreneurial spirit, business development acumen, and climate and food lens will be instrumental to accelerating our reach and impact as he steps into this new leadership role.
In addition to this leadership transition, we are proud to announce the addition of three new board members, who will add depth and breadth in the areas of business strategy, technology, marketing, development/fundraising, and governance, in addition to broadening our geographic representation.
Ash Ganapathiraju (Seattle, WA). Ash is a business leader, strategic thinker, founder, and relationship-builder focused on climate action through food. She has delivered successful products and solutions across Consulting, Sales Analytics, Channel Planning, Go-To-Market, and Brand Management, while building diversity and inclusion into the heart of business solutions.
James Iacino (Ridgeway, CO). James comes to Fresh Food Connect with deep experience in executive business leadership in the sustainable seafood industry, nonprofit board service and leadership, government and policy work, and philanthropy. James looks forward to elevating Fresh Food Connect’s network and fundraising capabilities.
Ben Weinberg (Honolulu, HI & Baltimore, MD). Ben is a tech founder whose career with startups has encompassed product management, software engineering, and design skills. Ben also works to evolve grantmaking towards trust-based philanthropy and shared intentionality. Ben looks forward to helping our technology become more user friendly and effective.
We are so proud to develop our board, as this is a very important step for FFC as we look to deepen our impact with our current partners and build out our network of gardeners in the coming year.
More information about our board is available here.
About Fresh Food Connect
Fresh Food Connect is growing a more local and resilient food system by providing technology that helps gardeners share homegrown produce to support hunger relief in their communities. Gardeners use the Fresh Food Connect app to connect with their local hunger relief organization to coordinate donations of homegrown produce. Hunger relief organizations in turn use the app to simplify receipt of produce from multiple gardeners in their community. In 2022, Fresh Food Connect supported over 2,700 gardeners in 24 states to donate more than 75,000 pounds of food to community members facing food insecurity through a network of 82 Operators.
