KARA YORIO E-mail: yoriok@northjersey.com
The Record (Bergen County, NJ)
01-26-2011
THE ULTIMATE FOOD GROUP
Byline: KARA YORIO E-mail: yoriok@northjersey.com
Section: BETTER LIVING
Type: News
Oprah. Steve Jobs. Michelle Obama. That's pretty good company and River Vale's Susan Ungaro sits among them on a recently released list of the country's most powerful people in food.
The Daily Meal, a website dedicated to to food and drink, named America's 50 Most Powerful People in Food last week. Ungaro, who appeared at No. 35 on the list, is the president of the James Beard Foundation.
'I was thrilled and surprised and honored to be in such fantastic company,' says Ungaro, who notes the names that stood out to her, including Obama, chef Daniel Boulud and U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Thomas Vilsack.
'What was creative or innovative in their list was that they not only recognized people who are the obvious leaders in the food world, but they also recognized people in government policy and people who run major food companies, because they affect how America eats,' says Ungaro.
The Daily Meal explains its choices this way, 'Our ultimate criterion was simply this: Can this person, whether by dint of corporate position, media access, moral authority or sheer personality, substantially change, improve and/or degrade the quality and variety of the American diet or the way we think about it?'
So who was No. 1? You.
'I thought that was a really clever, 'Time Inc. Person for the Year' kind of thinking, saying you are the most important person in terms of power in food in America,' says Ungaro. 'It's true.'
Ungaro believes the public must get involved in important policy changes for the safety of our food and health of the country. Of course powerful people in the food world must be on that bandwagon as well. Ungaro is particularly proud that her organization intends to honor such people beginning in fall 2011 with the new James Beard Foundation Leadership Awards.
'They will be awarded to people who are really changing the way people think and act about all the other areas in our culinary world -- agricultural sustainability, feeding the hungry, helping school lunch programs improve, food policy changes that need to be made to make our food healthier and safer,' she said.
E-mail: yoriok@northjersey.com
2011
