Chicago Harvest: Feeding our Future Sustainably (EVENT)

Chicago Harvest: Feeding our Future Sustainably (EVENT)

Sep 16, 2025, 04:30 PM

Sustainability is no longer a buzzword—it’s a mandate. But what does it take to move from rhetoric to measurable impact? This panel brings together leaders across food, energy, agriculture, and verification to explore how circular economies, upcycled ingredients, waste-to-value systems, and rigorous sustainability standards can reshape industries and communities.

From turning organic waste into renewable energy, to producing upcycled prebiotic fibers that reduce food waste and improve nutrition, to building resilient supply chains—these companies are pioneering tangible solutions that bridge environmental, social, and economic needs.

Chicago’s food system is ripe with innovation—from upcycled fibers to circular energy loops and urban fungi farms. This panel brings together trailblazers transforming how we grow, process, and power our food future.

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Joe Weber

FOUNDER / PRESIDENT

I started Four Star Mushrooms because I believe that creating sustainable agriculture systems will be our key to solving climate change and the global loss of biodiversity. While studying biology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign I became deeply curious about ecology and the degradation of our ecosystems. I began to understand that a lot of our environmental issues were rooted in the way we mass-produce food through industrial agriculture practices. Two realizations really changed the way I viewed things. 1: The average age of a supermarket apple is 14 months old, sitting in cold storage for the majority of this time. The antioxidant properties that apples are known for, polyphenols, begin to drop off after a few months in cold storage. 2: Monoculture agriculture, growing only one crop across hundreds or thousands of acres, is the largest cause of habitat loss and ecological degradation. Further, restoring degraded farmland to grasslands across the world has the potential to sequester 3 Gt of carbon per year, making it a viable solution to mitigate some impact of global climate change. My solution to these issues is to decentralize food production and utilize the Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) industry in and around urban areas. In doing so we will create fresher, more nutritious, consistently higher yielding produce while decreasing our negative environmental footprint. I am pro-farmer and I appreciate their endless hard work. They are truly the backbone, not only of America, but of the world. Unfortunately, the average age of the typical US farmer is 58 and only going up. With fewer people entering the farming industry than the previous year, a new kind of farmer is necessary as we progress through the 21st century. This farmer is armed with knowledge of technology and data and how we can leverage these tools to increase our production while decreasing resource consumption. My vision for the future is one in which we intelligently plan and restore environments at the ecosystem level. The green revolution gave us the great corn and soy fields that we live with today and I am thankful it did. However, as we move forward we need an approach that will allow us to grow while maintaining ecological integrity and I wholeheartedly believe that agriculture produced in and around major metropolitan areas, cleanly and in many instances indoors, is a solution that will reap positive outcomes on the environment, local entrepreneurs, and the surrounding community.

Sean DiGioia

CO-FOUNDER

I combine my background in finance and economics with a passion for sustainable agriculture to spearhead operational excellence. I carved my path in the world of corporate banking, navigating the intricacies of finance and learning the fundamentals of a resilient business. While I gained an immense amount of knowledge and built relationships I will always cherish, a sense of incompleteness always gnawed at me. At the time, my childhood friend, Joe Weber, was starting to grow something that I had refused to eat my entire life - mushrooms. Since we were in kindergarten, Joe and I have always shared a love for being outside in nature and admiring the biodiversity it offers. As soon as I understood the role that fungi play within our ecosystems, it became apparent to me that mushrooms were a lot more than just something I refused to eat as a child - they represented a new beginning in my life, just as they do in nature. Stepping into the world of fungi opened my eyes to a previously unseen realm of potential. These incredibly stunning and multi-faceted organisms, nature's recyclers and culinary powerhouses, offered a pathway to a healthier planet and healthier people. Fungi's ability to regenerate our soil, while at the same time providing a protein-dense superfood with a myriad of health benefits ignited a fire and a sense of purpose within me. At Four Star, we are not simply cultivating mushrooms; we are cultivating a new paradigm for our food systems. I believe that delicious, nutritious food can be produced in harmony with nature, fostering biodiversity and enriching the earth. My journey from finance to fungi may seem surprising, but it is a testament to the transformative power of passion and purpose. With every mushroom harvested, with every relationship built, with every community enriched, Four Star brings us closer to a future where healthy, sustainable food nourishes both our bodies and our planet.