Ruminate was founded by individuals looking to build a world where everyone has access to food, for both nourishment and enjoyment that represents their values. Each of us come from different realms of expertise, lived experience, and have our own visions for achieving our shared goals. It's this diversity that makes us stronger. We’re individuals who challenge norms and aren’t afraid of taking the road less traveled.
Kara sees repairing the food system as the most fundamental way to impact some of humanity’s greatest woes. The inability to feed our families well breeds anger. Childhood hunger has ramifications throughout entire lives. Externalized costs of certain industry players ravage our environment and in turn, our health. Chemicals are now regularly present in what we eat. What troubles her further is that food is too often politicized and the deep urgency in our need for action can make those who care deeply too forceful in how they try to enact change. Kara looks to turn the tide with her team at Ruminate.
She brings a decade of experience growing innovative programs from concept to scale to her role as Executive Director. She has worked across several continents, in many fields, breaking down and translating complex information into learnings that are in turn used to educate and inspire action. She believes in educating and building programs that keeps in mind how real humans, with all of our illogical quirks, work and learn. An economist and researcher at heart, she believes in the power of evidence based research while never losing sight of the power of human connection and passionate people. On her days off, Kara enjoys engaging with her local food scene through Slow Food West Michigan and indulging in all of the local, humane, sustainable cuisine she can stroll her daughter to, steps of her home in Grand Rapids, MI.
Kara’s mission @ Ruminate, this year, to engage stakeholders outside of the “good food” world into the food change conversation.
Sam is the Project Coordinator for Ruminate’s Monger / Maker Program, which supports small, value-based food producers with more accessible product development services.
Sam brings a decade of experience in the food industry with 5+ years working in cheese. She began her food career in craft chocolate and spent many years in food retail and the last 3 years working in restaurant management.
She believes the food industry is going through a Renaissance and is excited to work with folks exploring more creative ways in food production, sourcing, and service, as a means to building a more equitable and sustainable food economy.
As a longtime advocate for food access, Sam sees the strengths in mutual aid networks and their part in transforming the food system. She wishes to build collaborative partnerships with individuals and organizations in her community and in different parts of the country.
Lana is currently a Behavioral Research Lead with Ruminate. She is a recent graduate from Oregon Health and Science University’s MSc program in Food Systems and Society, where she focused her thesis on the relationship between the nationwide empathy deficit and the tolerance for structural injustice within the US food system.
Lana has a background in nutrition and exercise physiology, with a certification in Plant-Based Nutrition from Cornell University. Her professional experiences involve marketing, research, and public health roles within both for-profit and non-profit sectors of the food industry. She is a Lebanese-American, plant-based home cook and artist, who aspires to tackle and shed light on large systemic issues and foster replicable solutions to help build a more equitable society.
Lana desires to inform and influence our younger generations to adopt a clear understanding of where food comes from, who is involved, who lacks access, and why. One of her dreams is to write and illustrate children’s books on the combined topic of food and social justice, with the aim of cultivating empathetic individuals using the tool of narratives.
Ryan has over a decade of experience in brand development and creative direction within the social good sector. He has spent his career working with a wide spectrum of nonprofit organizations, establishing and updating engaging brands and developing and growing robust digital presences. He loves leading enthusiastic teams through design thinking exercises and educating teams on how to more effectively collaborate and brainstorm together. A true creative, Ryan loves implementing clean, beautiful designs that can be as much appreciated for their clever aesthtics as they are easy to understand. He has a B.A. Studio Art from Boston College and M.A. in Graphic Design from Suffolk University.
Alex is joining the team as an applied anthropologist with a focus on impact evaluation and qualitative data collection. His research interests focus on the local barriers to equitable food distribution. Alex is intent on using his passions and education in anthropology to aid people-centric problems from a people-centric perspective.
Alex's focus is in applying academic cultural theories to real world problems. He graduated in 2019 from Grand Valley State University with a Bachelor’s in anthropology, and was awarded a certificate in applied anthropology for continued work in the non-profit sector. There, Alex worked with burgeoning non-profits in order to better understand the people they service and the effects they have had on the surrounding community. His experience involves ethnographic work, qualitative data acquisition, and building personal connections with the people involved in a cultural study. Alex believes it is impossible to fully understand people without getting to know them, building a relationship, and coming together in order to shed light on the nuance that surrounds everyday life.
In his free time, Alex is an avid dungeon master and lover of tabletop RPGs. When he’s not lost in the myriad rabbit holes of Youtube documentaries, he can be found in the kitchen smiling and doing his best to cook tasty food for friends and family.
Melanie Kwon Duch is currently a senior technical product manager at Amazon, where she bridges user research, business, and technology to build transparent financing solutions for millions of customers. Before joining Amazon, she spent five years working with nonprofits on issues of economic equality and financial security. She believes good design can lead to sustainable and positive behavioral change, and is passionate about the intersection of public policy, education, and identity. Melanie graduated from Brown University with a BA in Public Policy and received an MBA from the NYU Stern School of Business.
Melanie’s mission @ Ruminate is to answer the question: How can we reduce food waste and end overproduction while driving sustainable and equitable access to healthy, affordable food?
Connie is a marketing and communications strategist, writer and editor who believes in the power of storytelling to motivate people to action. She loves the concept of using a cheese board to describe the food system at both the macro and micro levels, even as it irresistibly compels people to gather on important issues.
As Group Vice President at Ruder Finn, an integrated communications agency, Connie advises clients on how to build their reputations and drive strategic results. She works with both blue chip companies and start-ups in the health, agriculture, restaurant and CPG industries, leveraging creativity and analytics for award-winning success. Connie graduated from Barnard College, Columbia University with an Economics degree and coursework in Environmental Science and Sustainable Development.
Connie’s mission @ Ruminate is to help spread the word far and wide so that one day the food systems of the U.S. and countries around the world might be more equal.
Lorraine Lewandrowski is a working dairy farmer in the Mohawk Valley of New York State. Her family's Honeydale Farm works cooperatively with the adjoining Diaz Family Farm. Together, they are milking 200 cows who graze over several hundreds acres of wild and pretty lands of Upstate New York.
Lorraine Lewandrowski became a practicing attorney after the government attempted to seize Honeydale to serve as a landfill for New York's garbage. After beating eminent domain (thanks to Honeydale's resident threatened birds), Lorraine went to law school. Her clients have included the endangered Karner Blue Butterfly, dairy farmers, land owners, municipalities and cheesemakers.
The art and science of cheese is a fascinating topic for Lorraine. A graduate of Vermont Institute for Artisan Cheese (VIAC) program at University of Vermont, she helps out occasionally at local cheese plants. Lorraine likes practical projects and has served on some New York State commissions including the Mohawk Valley Heritage Corridor Commission and the New York State Solid Waste Management Board. She is currently working with Farm Women United advocating for farmers in crisis. Lorraine comes from a long line of militant dairy farmers and wishes she could be a member of a French dairy farmers union.
Lorraine's Mission @ Ruminate is to share her love of farmers, landscapes, and dairy.
Gordon Edgar has been a cheesemonger and worker/owner at Rainbow Grocery Cooperative in San Francisco since 1994. He has judged numerous cheese competitions, spoken at cheese events all over the country, and written two books on cheese: Cheesemonger (2010) and Cheddar (2015). Additionally, Edgar has organized conferences for worker cooperatives and helped found the US Federation of Worker Cooperatives in 2004. Currently he still works behind a counter, writes an occasional cheese article and is a member of the American Cheese Society's Judging and Competition Committee.
Gordon's Mission @ Ruminate is to continue to try and bridge the gap between urban and rural communities by promoting the work and struggles of scale-scale cheesemakers to city people who may not have experience or knowledge of rural issues, farming, or even cheese as a food staple.
