Specialized Environmental Technologies is Minnesota's leader in organics recycling. Every year SET and their partners divert millions of pounds of food scraps from the landfill and turn it into high quality compost that benefits the soil and the environment for generations to come. SET believes a key component to successful organics recycling programs is understanding how compost is made and the benefits of using it. By touring SET's Empire Organics Processing facility, participants will see firsthand how food and yard waste are turned into environmentally beneficial compost. They will get an up close look at the equipment in operation and a detailed explanation of the process from start to finish. Questions are encouraged and welcome!

Minnesota Central Kitchen (MCK) was born in the early days of the pandemic to rescue abandoned food, re-employ furloughed workers, and get urgently needed meals to folks facing hunger. Today, through a robust community network of more than 100 partners, MCK is ensuring ready-to-eat meals are available in communities and to families who need it most.

MCK kitchen partners order and receive meal ingredients from Second Harvest Heartland’s food bank supply chain, 60% of which are rescued from otherwise going to waste. Chefs transform ingredients into individual and family-style meals, with special effort placed on serving culturally connected meals made by and for communities of color. A network of trusted partners then brings meals to dozens of sites across our region for individuals and families to enjoy.

Join us for a tour of MCK kitchens that produce community connected meals:
Pham's Rice Bowl in the Global Market produces food for HOPE Youth Center and other partners most effected by the uprisings following George Floyd's murder. Meet owner Trung Pham and hear from community leaders.
Afro Deli produces Halal meals for homebound seniors. Meet Chef Moussa and hear how he has responded to the needs of the East African community during the pandemic.
Appetite for Change produces meals that are delivered to hundreds of families in North Minneapolis each week. Talk with Chef Emmiet and his team and hear how they are using meals as a way to care for their community.

Located in the heart of the "bread basket," Second Harvest Heartland is one of the largest food banks in the country. Second Harvest Heartland is dedicated to reducing food waste by working with manufacturing, retail and agricultural partners to divert safe, edible food from ending up in landfills and provide it to people in need. Come tour the new, state of the art warehouse and headquarters at Second Harvest Heartland, including a temperature controlled clean room to process fresh foods. Meet the leaders who source and recover the food and join a discussion about how your food bank can do more to reduce waste and end hunger.

The Good Acre is a nonprofit food hub whose mission is to connect and strengthen farmers, food makers, and communities through good food. Their work centers on offering one on one technical assistance to local produce farmers, creating wholesale markets that pay an equitable price to farmers, and supporting small food businesses through operating a shared-use commercial kitchen space. The Good Acre also offers CPG-focused business workshops, a vocational culinary training program with a farm-to-school focus, warehousing, and a 500+ member multi-farm share program. Tour the space and learn more about this innovative food hub and the role it plays in supporting the local Twin Cities food system.

NETZRO is a state-of-art food upcycling platform that helps power the safe capture and conversion of industrial food & beverage byproducts into new sustainable upcycled food ingredients at scale. NETZRO’s regional processing center is located in the Wycliff Building in St Paul, https://www.thewycliff.com/ . The Wycliff is a flexible industrial space supporting small to medium food manufacturing with modern infrastructure and growth-friendly amenities to stir imagination and fuel productivity.

The SMSC Organics Recycling Facility is a large scale, commercial composting facility in Shakopee, MN. The Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community (SMSC) opened the Organics Recycling Facility to reflect the Dakota tradition of caring for the earth. Since opening in 2011, the ORF has diverted over 400,000 tons of material for composting. Last year, the facility sold over 80,000 CY of compost to residential and commercial customers. Come tour our facility to see how we turn food waste into compost. The City of Minneapolis rolled out its residential organics recycling program in 2016-2017. Come learn from Minneapolis' Recycling Coordinator, Kellie Kish, about the City roll-out of the organics program and the education and outreach efforts that have led to over 50% of it’s customers participating and less than 1% contamination in the material that’s collected.

It's not just the grass that's green! At Target Field, sustainability and environmental stewardship are important elements of building design and operations. Target Field achieved Silver certification from the U.S. Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) program, and was the highest-ranked LEED-certified major league ballpark upon its completion. Target Field leads the way in water reuse and recycling, and transit. On the Environment and Sustainability tour, learn how LEED credits are earned at Target Field, and how the ballpark meets the many environmental challenges of a sports facility.

The Bühler Food Application Center in Minneapolis is a unique installation, a playground for the food industry. Drawing on 160 years of food processing expertise, we’ve created this pilot plant as a platform for developing new ways to transform peas, chickpeas, beans, corn, oats, special grains and many other crops, into flours, flakes, snacks, pasta, cereals, meat analogs, food ingredients, and a myriad of extruded products. The new food solutions created here will lead to more sustainable food systems and better nutrition for millions of people.

Come and hear the history behind 10 years of working to use food as a tool to create health, wealth and social change in North Minneapolis. You will see the Breaking Bread Cafe, the Appetite For Growing Hoop House and the Deep Winter Greenhouse (2nd of it’s kind in Mpls). This tour will be hosted by one of the founders, our urban agriculture team and one of our youth interns.

Interested in a shorter tour near the conference. Visit the University of Minnesota Campus Club. The Campus Club is a non-profit restaurant and event venue located on the fourth floor of the Coffman Memorial Union. Headed by Executive Chef, Beth Jones Campus Club was an early partner with Minnesota Central Kitchen (MCK). Since 2020 Campus Club has been taking in a diverse set of donated and rescued ingredients and making delicious ready to heat and eat meals that MCK distributes across the Twin Cities. Chef Beth, is an expert in efficiently and creatively using donated product. She will share how she weaves MCK into her day-to-day operations to produce more than 2,000 meals a week to feed the community. For example, how she menu plans when ingredients are unpredictable and keeps labor costs down to enable MCK to provide more meals to the community. Meals produced by the Campus Club are provided free of charge to students in need at the U of M as well as to multiple non-profits serving youth and seniors in the area. Tour of the kitchen and Q&A with Chef Beth will be from 2:30-3:30. Campus Club is less than half a mile walk from McNamara Alumni Center.