My Food Journey Part 6: Building Food Web
Food Web didn’t start as a startup idea. It started as a pattern I couldn’t unsee.
For years, as a chef, educator, freelancer, researcher, I kept running into the same friction points. Kitchens that sat empty while people searched desperately for access. Community spaces that wanted to support food entrepreneurs but didn’t have the tools. Farmers’ market vendors who wanted to scale but couldn’t find compliant prep space. Nonprofits and community groups trying to feed people while navigating a maze of infrastructure, permits, and logistics.
I had experienced these barriers personally. And then, during my internship with Farmers’ Markets of Nova Scotia, I heard the same stories echoed back to me from across the province.
Different people. Same problem.
Food Web emerged from that moment. Not as a silver-bullet solution, but as a practical response to a very real gap. What if we made it easier to share the food infrastructure we already have? What if kitchens, equipment, and space were treated as community assets rather than locked-away resources? What if access, coordination, and trust were designed into the system instead of left to chance?
In 2023, I pitched Food Web to the Lab2Market Launch program at Dal Innovates. We were accepted, received $15K in funding, and given mentorship to test whether this idea had legs. That summer wasn’t about building tech yet, it was about listening. Talking to kitchen owners. Talking to food businesses. Talking to municipalities, economic development officers, nonprofits, and farmers. Testing assumptions. Being told “no” by some, and being told “this is overdue” by others.
From there, the work deepened.
We secured a few other grants to support research, engagement, and early development. We went on the road, hosting focus groups and engagement sessions across communities. We worked with local governments and economic development teams who were trying to strengthen their food economies but lacked coordination tools. We partnered with organizations like the Restaurants Association of Nova Scotia to reach kitchens where food already happens every day.
Throughout it all, we stayed grounded in a simple principle: Food Web had to be built with the people who would use it.
That meant slowing down when needed. It meant resisting the urge to scale prematurely. It meant designing systems that respected the realities of kitchen operators, food entrepreneurs, and community organizations, not just investors or growth metrics.
As Food Web evolved, so did our approach to collaboration. We launched a referral program not just as a growth tactic, but as a way to share value. If people are helping us grow the network, they should be able to earn alongside it.
On the technical side, we focused on building a minimum viable product that actually solved the core problem: helping people find, book, and share kitchen space more easily. No bells and whistles. Just something that worked and could grow.
And on December 8th, 2025, we officially launched!! Not as a “we made it” moment, but as a beginning.
Food Web is still becoming. It’s shaped by feedback, partnerships, and the communities it serves. It carries the lessons of my years in kitchens, on farms, in classrooms, and inside institutions. It reflects my belief that resilient food systems aren’t built by lone heroes. They are built through shared infrastructure, shared responsibility, and shared care.
Building Food Web has been the most demanding work I’ve ever done. It’s also the most aligned. Because at its core, this isn’t just about kitchens or software or startups. It’s about making it easier for people to feed each other. It’s about removing friction so good work can happen. And it’s about designing systems that make community care more possible, not more exhausting.
This chapter doesn’t end here. But it finally feels like the threads are weaving together.
This writing is always free to read.
If it nourished you in any way, you can buy me a coffee below and help fuel what comes next ☕️
