Inaugural Edible Business Conference To Be Held At Stony Brook Southampton

The debut Edible Business Conference will be held at Stony Brook University’s Southampton campus from Friday, June 5th to Sunday, June 7th. The conference will offer a wide variety of products as well as lectures from professionals in the food industry.

The event is a great learning experience for all attendees. (Photo: www.facebook.com)

Kathleen Russo, a core member of the Food Lab at Stony Brook University Southampton, said that the event is a great learning experience.

“The goal is to help people who are starting their own food and drink companies gain perspective from people who have been doing it for a while,” noted Russo.

The event will feature professionals from all different fields of the food industry. Farmers from across the Hamptons area will be in attendance, as well as food startups. There will also be professional brewers, ice cream and yogurt makers, and even poultry workers.

An opening reception and tasting will be held on Friday, from 5 to 8 p.m. The evening will feature welcoming remarks from Geoffrey Drummond, a raw bar, Channing Daughters wine, beer, apps, mescal, cider, and music by Carlos Lama.

The keynote speakers on Saturday morning are Amanda Hesser, co-founder of Food52 and former writer for The New York Times, and Jessica Soffer, author of Tomorrow there will be Apricots. Along with the lectures, Saturday will also include a series of panels, where different professionals can present themselves and give samples. The panels will cover growing a food business, seafood and meat, food tech and media, farming and agriculture production and the business of drinking. In between the main panels, there will be food tasting, drinking panels and food trucks for lunch breaks.

On Saturday, attendees can enjoy a lunch that consists of sliders from Nice Buns food truck and lobster rolls from Canal Café. Daytime snacks will include bites from South Fork Kitchens and KIND bar, as well as Hampton Coffee Company Coffee and ice cream from Joe and Liza’s. For dinner on Saturday, attendees will enjoy a family-style dinner prepared by Chef Jason Weiner, the head chef at Almond.

Amanda Hesser, co-founder of Food52 and former writer for The New York Times, is among keynote speakers. (Photo: www.facebook.com)

On Sunday morning, there will be another networking session, as well as breakfast by Hampton Coffee and Crepe Truck.

The Food Lab at Stony Brook is sponsoring the inaugural conference, along with Edible East End and the Amagansett Food Institute. The Food Lab is a new program at Stony Brook, with the mission of being a center for education, enterprise, discussion and media for anything having to do with food—from its production to the business side.

The event is open to the public and tickets are $159.

Stony Brook University Southampton is located at 239 Montauk Highway in Southampton. For more information, visit thefoodlab.org.