Three Chicago Entrepreneurs - Putting "Focus and Determination" Into Action

This past Thursday, I moderated a panel of CEOs at the Farm To Fork Conference (part of the three day Family Farmed Expo). To give you a little background, the Expo was 3-day event designed to connect local farms and local food producers with consumers and the trade. The Expo was a huge success with featured guests like Kathleen Merrigan (USDA deputy secretary and promoter, along with Michelle Obama, of Know your food, know your farmer) and Woody Tash (author of the Slow Money Movement). If you didn't go this year, it's a must attend next year if you are committed to helping our country eat better and in a more sustainable way.

I assisted with the business track portion of the conference. My panel was about "Taking Food & Beverage Businesses to Scale". My panelists were local entrepreneurs Marc Schulman, President of Eli's Cheesecake; John Hall, President and Founder of Goose Island Beer Company; and Matthew Weinstein Co-Founder HomeMade Pizza Company (what's better than pizza and beer with a cheesecake finish!!). Each of these local companies have "made it", i.e. they all have reached a certain level of "scale". As I listened to their success stories, the words "focus and determination" were common threads to their success.

Each company stayed focused on being the best at what they do. HomeMade Pizza did not consider franchising as they would not have been able to ensure the best quality pizza. Eli's Cheesecake started as a steakhouse, but realized a stronger opportunity (with less competition) lay in perfecting the Cheesecake (no cracks, perfectly smooth, etc.). They went to work on relentlessly being the best. Ultimately, the steakhouse closed but the Cheesecake remains in many forms and was recently served at our President's Inaugural Dinner. John Hall of Goose Island spoke of how he has chosen to bottle other beverages to efficiently utilize his assets at his bottling plant, but he never takes his eye off of brewing the best craft beer possible. Today, Goose Island brews over 50 craft beers.

I was honored to be asked to moderate this distinguished set of panelists and look forward to being in their shoes (hopefully soon)!

PS - Thanks to Marc at Eli's for taking our pic! You can check out his blog post too...http://blog.elicheesecake.com/?p=2453