We often talk about the need to take action, to do something to change your life, and the world around you. The tough part is figuring out where and when. Can you imagine entering the world of finance and investing without a degree in Economics, or a handful of years working at a financial firm, behind you? If that idea scares you, then you'll understand how passionate Jarred had to be to start Austin Foodshed Investors, a company focused on creating change through the action of investing money in small scale local food businesses. 

When did you know that you wanted to work in food?

I grew up in a rural community, about an hour northwest of Austin, Texas. We always grew a good portion of our food, raised livestock for our consumption and did our best with what we had. As I grew up, like most folks in my situation, I moved away from that way of living. I ate fast food because it was cheap, bought prepackaged foods at the grocery store because it was convenient, and so on. All the while, I was noticing a steady decline in the vitality of the small towns around where I grew up. I have watched Austin grow at a staggering rate, while the smaller, rural towns around Central Texas have declined at almost as fast a pace. This decline was making it hard for families to survive in these small towns and subsequently, their ways of life - the way of life I grew up with - was disappearing too.

I can't actually pinpoint my "aha moment", but it was around this time that I started thinking more about ways to strengthen local economies, rebuild communities and address the health issues that seemed to be effecting these areas (food deserts in the middle of fertile, farmed/ranched land). I started looking for folks to have this conversation with and finally found the Slow Money group. They were talking about all the problems I was seeing. They didn't have an answer for it yet (we actually still don't, really), but they were talking about it and I wanted to be a part of the conversation. That's when I decided it was going to be my passion, my life's work, to bring good, healthy food, economic vitality and a sense of community back to the place I grew up. If we can do it here, then maybe we can help others do it where they live.

How did you get your current good food job?

Well, I actually created it. I first heard about the Slow Money movement in early 2011. I was excited to hear that they had an active network here in Austin, so I started attending meetings. The timing ended up being just right, as some of the original, founding members had recently seen their businesses take off and were not able to devote the time they wanted to it. So, there was an opportunity for me to step in and have an impact.

After helping run Slow Money Texas/Austin for a few years, I started noticing some gaps in the entrepreneurial ecosystem around food companies here in town. There was a thriving startup scene, but it was all focused on tech, biotech, software and the like. No one was working with, supporting or funding the great companies that were working to strengthen our local food system and create local jobs. So, my Co-Founder and I set out to build something that would do just that. We created Austin Foodshed Investors.

How did your previous work or life experience prepare you for a good food job?

I have a varied work background. I graduated from college with an Electrical Engineering degree and went to work at Dell Computers. After getting tired of cubicals and white-noise makers, I quit and got into rural real estate - I was a farm and ranch broker. This is what I did until I quit to run AFI full time. I think each has provided me with some exposure and a different perspective on things. Dell allowed me to see how companies grow from early stage to large, multi-billion dollar organizations. I learned how to navigate within a monstrosity, how to speak the lingo (cross-functional this, matrixed that) and how a public company operates and relates to its shareholders. My real estate brokerage chapter got me back out on the land. It got me talking to farmers, ranchers, members of smaller communities all around Central Texas (my ranges covered about a 200 mile radius). I got to hear their struggles, why they were selling their farms, why their kids wanted the money instead of the land. These stories stuck with me. I watched as beautiful pieces of the Texas Hill Country were sold to developers, or just cut into smaller pieces and resold. All of this was to the detriment of the local community, it was eroding generations of "place". These experiences, paired with some small scale investing that I started doing about 5-6 years ago, all led to my understanding of how food systems work, where our food comes from, the people who grow it and how best to get them the capital they need to do more of it. I think it is a huge asset that I don't have a finance background and that I have never been an investment banker. I don't have preconceived notions about how investment should look. This allows me to take on every deal with no bias, no agenda. I am free to work with the entrepreneur and the investors and figure out what works best for their individual situation.

What was the greatest obstacle you had to overcome in pursuing your Good Food Job dream? 

Shockingly, the biggest obstacle we have faced in building AFI, so far, has been regulatory restrictions. We have found the food community near us to be very receptive, welcoming and cooperative. The entrepreneurs, farmers, ranchers and other food folks have welcomed us with open arms, to the tune of us looking at over 100 deals in the first year. That is over 100 companies that came to us for help growing their business. Similarly, we have had many people say that they love the companies we are working with, that they are already customers, and that they want to invest to help them grow. Larger foundations and non-profits around our area would even like to get involved, but the mechanisms required to enable or engage all of this support are very tricky. We have spent the majority of our startup funds on legal fees to make sure that we are operating within the law and helping these companies structure their funding in ways that are fair to everyone, keeping them out of trouble with investors and keeping us out of trouble with the SEC. Everyone thinks that the new crowdfunding rules are going to be the silver bullet to solve all of these problems, but there is still a lot of work to be done to flesh out just how it will work. So, we are persevering. Mainly just continuing to double check everything we do with our legal guys, but doing our best to not let it stifle our financial innovation. We want to push the envelope every time to ensure we get the right fit for each company, rather than shoehorn them into something that doesn't work for them, for simplicity's sake.

Name one positive thing that a former employer taught you that you continue to appreciate? 

This is somewhat adjacent to the question, but I have always been influenced by a class that I took my last semester in college. The class was Total Quality Improvement. It was geared towards manufacturing processes and the like. However, I took something else from it and have tried to implement it into my everyday working and personal life: it's the idea of continuous improvement. I have always asked my bosses, customers, managers - even my wife - "how am I doing?". I find that with consistent feedback, we can consistently improve our work environment, our product offerings and our business.

This practice is how we have shaped, and continue to shape, the services that we offer through Austin Foodshed Investors. When we started out, we were just going to be another angel network, with accredited investors looking at companies that applied with us. However, over time we realized that there was no support system for small food entrepreneurs. There aren't incubators, accelerators and the like for small food businesses, and the mentors that are out there preaching from the rafters are telling everyone that if they don't get big enough to sell out to General Mills, then they might as well close up shop now. By asking the companies we talked to what they needed, what their pain points were, we were able to see an opportunity to help where we hadn't originally planned to. Our business model changes weekly, but our mission and core values stay the same.

What can you identify as the greatest opportunities in food right now? 

My lens for opportunity always falls back to the local level. Not because I don't see global food security and the like as serious problems that require much attention, but rather because those issues already have the lions share of the resources headed their way. I'm more focused on solving the problem of rural job creation, land preservation and the 45,000 food insecure families just in Austin alone.

That said, I'm not a doomsday kind of guy. I see opportunity in all of this. The opportunity lies in connecting the dots to address multiple problems at once. Austin currently sources around 1% of its food locally (within 100 miles). While there is a huge Farm-to-Table movement in our town, that doesn't make a blip on the radar when it comes to overall consumption. The institutional purchasers are the holy grail - hospitals, schools, universities, major employers, etc. If someone could crack the code and figure out a way - through local/regional distribution, a food hub, or whatever works in their region - to get regional farmers growing and regional makers producing food for these institutions, then that is a massive opportunity. The jobs that it would create in the production, manufacturing and distribution of this food, paired with the buying power these institutions hold is an amazing opportunity. From our research and discussions we've had around Texas, the interest is there from the institutional side. This means the market is there, and it is a very large one.

If you could be compensated for your work with something other than money, what would it be?

I would happily work for food! In fact, I sometimes do. I think my wife would be crushed if I ever quit AFI because she is always curious what new, tasty product samples I'm going to bring home this week.