Our Diversity Pledge

Food Biz Wiz is here to transform the food industry.

Everyone deserves the knowledge and tools they need to give their business a real shot.

 
 

When we empower entrepreneurs and help their food business succeed, we are able to increase diversity on our shelves, deepen connections to our food sources, and support consumers as they shop more consciously and with integrity.

Our modern-day food industry has felt stagnant, stale, and homogenous, with the decisions of what gets put on the shelf, and what lands on our tables typically made by a very small group of white men. While that’s changing, we’re here to help speed up that process and shift to an industry that represents the complex, beautiful, delicious diversity that we crave on - and at - our tables.

Internally, here’s what we’re doing at Food Biz Wiz to educate ourselves, identify where we’re inadvertently contributing towards systemic racism, and advocate for a more just, diverse food industry. This work is ongoing, and we haven’t figured it all out. We’re learning, listening, and vowing to grow.

  • Hired a Diversity, Equity & Inclusion consultant (a Black woman), for a year-long engagement of in-depth work (2020-2021)

  • Pay for and prioritize the time for our entire management team to work directly with a 100% LGBTQ2S+ and 50% Indigenous (Métis) owned business coaching team, weekly, to ensure we are creating an equitable, sustainable, values-aligned online business (2022- present)

  • Ongoingly pay for our team to attend additional diversity training led by Black women and people of color

  • Hired a recruiting coach (a Black woman) to help with our hiring process, ensuring we have job descriptions that attract a diverse group of applicants, an application process that doesn’t discriminate, and a company culture that diverse employees want to join in the first place.

  • We’ve worked hard both on the internal company culture & external positioning (website, social media, newsletters, etc) so that we are creating an environment that is safe for BIPOC employees, and everyone can understand what we stand for just by visiting our website. We are currently a team that is 75% female, and 25% BIPOC.

  • We have updated our podcast guest form and industry expert onboarding forms to ensure that we aren’t amplifying voices of folks who don’t support the same values as us. You can see an example here.

  • We are currently in the process of updating all of our dozens of hours of video content, workbooks, checklists, etc., to ensure that we’re addressing systemic racism in the content that we’re publishing, and creating content that acknowledges the work that has to be done by everyone in our industry. We’ve added in additional forms of educational materials, including closed-captioning all course videos and adding in written, audio & text-based lessons to support diverse styles of learning

  • We have put in place an evaluation method for assessing our partners all along the supply chain, and ensuring that our dollars are invested in companies that share our values. We’ve vetted every single one of our software platforms, our paid ads agency, our podcasting team, our coaches, and our affiliate partners. We’ve divested our dollars from those who aren’t vocal in sharing the same values that we do, and have a formalized process for vetting future vendors.

  • We’ve updated our community guidelines in our public & private student Facebook groups, articulating what is acceptable conduct in our spaces, what is not tolerated, and our stance on how we are working to dismantle racism in our industry.

  • I have pledged (and unfortunately, had to act on this pledge!) to turn down any speaking engagements on panels or at conferences that do not have a diverse set of speakers (or who aren’t willing to add diversity to their lineup). I don’t want to be on stage with a bunch of homogenous food industry consultants!

  • We have added a statement around the JEDI principals to our student platform inside Retail Ready®, which is mandatory to review before you can access course content. I am proud that hundreds of brands see this each month, and are also invited to sign the pledge. It outlines the work that we’ve done internally and invites our Retail Ready® founders to do the same.

  • We put our money where our mouth is by donating to non-profits that support the Black Lives Matter movement, Black Farmers in America, Black Food Media & Education, and Voter Education & Protection. Recently, we raised over $5500 for Project Potluck (a non-profit that supports people of color in our industry) by offering a week of donations-based training to food founders, where 100% of funds were donated directly, and $2500 were matched by Food Biz Wiz®.

We recognize that this work is ongoing and ever-evolving. We welcome conversations around our work and how we can do better. You can reach us directly at hi@alliball.com.