DC Climate Week Leadership Forum – Future Food Fireside Chat
Event description
Bruce Friedrich, founder and president of the Good Food Institute, has been invited to speak alongside Chef Spike Mendelsohn for a fireside chat on “Future Food at the intersection of climate, nature, and health.”
The focus is straightforward: if we’re serious about climate goals, food has to be part of the plan. From plant-based to cultivated meat, new approaches are opening the door to producing the foods people love with far less land, water, and emissions—while helping protect ecosystems and build a more resilient food system.
This session brings that big picture into a real-world conversation—what’s working, what’s changing, and what still needs to happen.
Event location
GFI speaker

Bruce Friedrich
PRESIDENT AND FOUNDER
Bruce Friedrich serves as GFI’s chief thought leader and relationship-builder, working in close partnership with GFI’s global teams and food system stakeholders around the world.
Bruce is a TED Fellow, Y Combinator alum, and popular speaker on food innovation. He has penned op-eds for the Wall Street Journal, Foreign Policy, Nature Food, USA Today, Los Angeles Times, Wired, CNN, and many other publications. He has represented GFI on the TED Radio Hour, New Yorker Radio Hour, the Ezra Klein Show, Making Sense (Sam Harris), and a variety of other podcasts and TV programs. Bruce’s 2019 TED talk has been viewed more than 2.4 million times and translated into 30 languages.
Publishers Weekly selected Bruce’s book Meat as a top 10 new release in science, writing: “This packed account makes food science feel like an urgent and essential undertaking.” The book has also received praise from Nobel Laureate in economics Michael Kremer, former UNFCCC head Christiana Figueres, and CSIS director of global food and water security Caitlin Welsh, who penned the foreword. Says Welsh: “This book explains the imperative to transform our food systems, and lays out a game plan to get us there…. Meat is as important as it is enjoyable.” Find out more on the book’s website, MeatBook.org.
Bruce graduated magna cum laude from Georgetown Law and also holds degrees from Johns Hopkins University, the London School of Economics, and Grinnell College.