Good Food Advisors is a strategic advisory firm that helps clients across the food system leverage innovation to build a more prosperous and sustainable food future.
Food and agriculture is one of the most important industries from an economic, social and environmental perspective. It contributes $10 trillion (USD), or 12%, to global GDP, is a primary determinant of human health, employs 40% of all workers and accounts for half of all land use and 70% of all water use.
However, the food system is broken with devastating consequences for human and planetary health. Nearly half of the global population struggles with diet-related health issues while one third of food is wasted. Food and agriculture is responsible for 25% of global greenhouse gas emissions and is a key contributor to water scarcity, soil degradation and biodiversity loss.
Good Food Advisors views these challenges as an extraordinary opportunity to create financial, social and environmental value through innovation. Our deep knowledge and network within the food system, combined with our strategic, action-oriented approach, helps clients, including food companies, tech startups and investors, identify and execute on specific opportunities for impact.
Strategy
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Insights on food systems trends and opportunities
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Recommendations to create and capture value
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Strategic planning to define business goals and plans
Implementation
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Design for new programs and projects
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Management to guide programs and projects to execution
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Monitoring and evaluation to set metrics, gather data and analyze results
Stakeholder Engagement
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Mapping to identify and profile relevant stakeholders
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Outreach to build relationships and influence
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Communications to create alignment and action toward shared goals
Serving corporate, startup and investment clients
working to drive food system transformation
Clients
Food companies
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Grocery retailers
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Food producers and manufacturers
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Emerging food brands
Investors
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Venture capital and private equity firms
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Family offices
Tech startups
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Food-tech startups
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Ag-tech startups
What Clients Say
Kim Coffin
Chief Forager
Sprouts Farmers Market
Chris helped our newly-formed Forager team develop a strategy and roadmap for product innovation at Sprouts. We were immediately impressed with his tailored, action-oriented approach, and his collaborative, authentic nature inspired trust with our team. He listened to our needs, made sense of disparate ideas and perspectives, and translated it all into clear and realistic recommendations, complete with decision frameworks, processes and timelines. Chris also helped us broaden our network of partners through choiceful and productive introductions to investors, associations and emerging brands.
Matt Schwartz
Co-founder and CEO
Afresh
At Afresh we've been extremely fortunate to have Chris as a trusted advisor. On a personal level, Chris brings an incredibly rare combination of kindness and dogged discipline of execution. When you pair this ease of partnership with his ownership of meaningful projects—for us both in navigating commercial relationships and standing up significant components of our community partnership strategy—Chris adds tremendous value to our business.
Ida Posner
Vice President, Strategic Planning
The Hawthorne Group
From high level strategic questions to specific investment opportunities to consider, Chris has been an excellent strategic partner in helping us navigate the food investment landscape. He built immediate trust and respect with my colleagues by keeping the conversation focused while holding space for various personalities and opinions. Chris provides helpful frameworks and guiding questions to approach complex topics, and he asks the best questions. I have never had a conversation with him where I didn’t 1) learn something, 2) question an existing assumption, and 3) leave with a new idea or path forward.
Adam Behrens
Co-founder and CEO
Mori
Chris's combination of expertise in food retailers and sustainability is extremely hard to come by. He applies his knowledge and network in both strategic and tactical ways. At Mori, he has positively impacted everything from strategic planning at a company-wide level to managing individual accounts and projects. Chris has remained extremely flexible to our needs, with all his work complemented by a deep care for creating value.
Anne Marie Toccket
Executive Director
Posner Foundation
Chris is a rare blend of subject matter expert in food systems with equal adeptness as a skilled facilitator. In designing and facilitating our inaugural grantee retreat, he frequently asked gentle but challenging questions that led us to better solutions than we’d originally conceived. Participants immediately took to his candid, inviting style, bits of humor and relatability, and ability to adapt to the energy in the room. Chris brought a ton of optimism and productivity to our event - if there were a Chris on every team effort, we would all be more productive and cohesive teams for it.
Leadership
Meet Chris Cochran
Chris Cochran is a food innovation and sustainability leader and the Founder and Principal of Good Food Advisors. He brings more than a decade of food systems experience that includes launching new ventures, leading in-house corporate innovation and sustainability initiatives, and advising clients on creating the future of food. Prior to founding Good Food Advisors, Chris served as the inaugural Executive Director of ReFED, a think tank focused on reducing food waste across the United States. Before that, Chris was the Senior Manager of Sustainability at Walmart where he led sustainability for Walmart's global produce business. Chris began his career by working with smallholder farmers in Central America and still owns a cocoa farm with local partners in Honduras.
Chris has spoken at leading conferences and events such as The Wall Street Journal Global Food Forum, GreenBiz, Verge, Circularity, SOCAP and Future Food-Tech and has been interviewed by major news outlets including The Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times, The Washington Post, Bloomberg, PBS and NPR. Chris has received the VERGE Vanguard award for his leadership in sustainability.
Chris holds a master's degree in international economics and development from The Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) and a bachelor's degree in finance and accounting from Harding University.
