A Look At the Women Panelist of SXSW’s SouthBites
As a part of the interactive portion of South by Southwest, the annual 10-day festival introduced the SouthBites program last year. SouthBites is a platform designated to connect food with the technology industry. After a successful inaugural year, SouthBites returns for several days of SXSW. What’s more, many of this year’s panelists are women who are changing the food landscape in an innovative way.
Fork in Hand, Nostalgia at Heart: Food and Heritage brings together three women food bloggers from very different culinary and culture backgrounds. Amy Kritzer (What Jew Wanna Eat), Annette Priest (UX Consultant) and Kay Marley-Dilworth (ATX Food News) examine how they each excluded their heritages, but then embraced it in their cooking.
Preserving Local Food Artisans by Going Global joins Marla Camp (Edible Austin), Anna Smith Clark (Get Gone Traveler) and Sam Addison (Pogue Mahone Pickles) as they discuss preserving artisanal food traditions from a global standpoint. Camp and Addison both received 2015 Good Food Awards – an honor given out to American food producers who provide their own ingredients.
72 Ways Food Can Change the World is a panel inspired by an Eater article surveying different ways people are changing the world through the food industry. The article featured farmers, food pioneers, cooks and restaurateurs, including Jessamyn Rodriguez, founder of Hot Bread Kitchen. Rodriguez, who will speak on Monday’s SouthBites panel, created the non-profit to confront issues such as poverty and diet through baking quality breads. In addition to baking breads, Hot Bread Kitchen offers programs for minority men and women in order to provide for their families.
We talked to HBK’s Communications Manager, Grace Moore, to give us more insight into this groundbreaking company.
How did Jessamyn come up with Hot Bread Kitchen?
Jessamyn learned to bake at Restaurant Daniel, where she was the first woman to be hired as a baker. She also has a background in immigration and international policy; she sparked a baking collective idea in her head, sat on the idea for quite a few years before founding HBK.
How many employees does HBK have?
Around 60, the majority of which are women.
How does Hot Bread Kitchen empower women in the workforce?
We really use education as a tool to make change. We are targeting individuals who have skill, especially in a challenging place like New York and give them to opportunity to take advantage of that talent.
Why is it important for women to be involved – and high up – in the food industry?
Around the world, women play a key role in feeding their families and driving food culture, but are rarelu represented in the food industry. It’s a way of balancing the system, but also to reflect and think outside of a commercial kitchen.
Can you tell us more about the programs HBK offers?
We have two programs; one is a baking program for low income and minority women. It lasts for 9-12 months and we have a monthly hiring cycle. Basically, whoever is interested will fill out an application and we invite them to interview. We interview around 20 people a month and hire two to four. We hope to have 30 women graduate this year; last year we had 22 graduates. The other program is a culinary incubator – it’s for the NYC food entrepreneur, low income and minorities get priority and it’s a longer-term commitment.
Eater Editor-in-Chief, Amanda Kludt, and Rodriguez will discuss Hot Bread Kitchen at length and how everyone can apply HBK’s work ethic to better the world.
72 Ways Food Can Change the World panel will take place Monday, March 16, at the Driskill Hotel, Maxamillion Room. SouthBites will run from Saturday, March 14 through Monday, March 16. To attend, registrants must have a 2015 SXSW Interactive, Gold or Platinum badge.
TAGS: SouthBites SXSW Women Chefs Women in Food