About Us

The Robert Neihardt Award program was founded by Mark & Ashley Baker in 2017.  The award program was designed to inspire young people to explore our food system and consider one of the many career paths offered. The opportunity is to challenge young people to think of novel ways to feed humankind in the coming decades to improve our current food systems and make a positive social change. Our current food systems must improve if we want to feed the estimated 10 billion people in the coming years and save our planet for future generations.   

We were astounded by how many people had never heard of food science or food safety or had an understanding of where their food comes from.  It was very seldom that we would run into anyone who knew what these were or how public health plays a role in our food systems.  It was just a given that food is safe and that chocolate milk comes from brown cows.  

That is partly why the food system is prime for significant disruptions and improvements. Food technologies from the farm to the fork have been taken for granted, and as such, parents, teachers, and other mentors have steered young people to different industries.  We need to inspire our future talented, gifted, and passionate generation of future scientists, farmers, chefs, and policymakers to work in the food system to make a positive social change by disrupting our current food systems. 

What started as an idea is rapidly becoming a movement for positive change in our food systems.  Today, we hold one competition per year for children aged 8-18 to compete for an award.  We challenge young people to think big and try new and novel approaches to think through our food system questions.  Please, keep exploring our website to learn more about the Robert Neihardt Award and how we are inspiring our future food leaders.