Meet Brynn Foster | Food Entrepreneur | Holistic Wellness Coach | Regenerative Farming Advocate

We had the good fortune of connecting with Brynn Foster and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Brynn, can you talk to us a bit about the social impact of your business?

Voyaging Foods customers are those wanting a better-for-you option, ingredient swaps, gluten and grain free, refined sugar free snacks and meals. We solve the issues of it’s “hard to be healthy”. We intend to create access and availability to alternative foods through our products highlighting canoe plant flours including taro, breadfruit and sweet potato which we highlight as ingredients. These high-in-fiber plants are what we believe to be the foundation for our premium baked goods, all-purpose flour mixes, and natural body care. Canoe Plants are complex carbohydrates needed for energy production and are both gluten-free and grain free. We refer to canoe plants as the plants the Polynesians brought on their open-ocean voyaging canoes across the Polynesian triangle. These plants were a great foundation for what was needed to survive and prosper in the areas of food, housing and medicine.

Through these tasty treats, we are actively building food security while reducing Hawaii’s dependence on 100% imported flour through our “Wayfinder” micro-factory project. Our intent is to support a regenerative food system rooted in regional flour production. We aim to be “vertically integrated” growing, milling and baking our own products (while knowledge sharing) so the transparency of everything we do is communicated to our customers.

Allergies and alternative diets are more prevalent than ever as a result of modernized farming practices and nutrient-void foods. We are first and foremost regenerative farming advocate’s not just bakers and food makers so the way our plants are grown is just as important as how they are made, which all equals to better-for-you foods.

Can you give our readers an introduction to your business? Maybe you can share a bit about what you do and what sets you apart from others?

I am not only a food entrepreneur but also a small farming advocate and supporter for homemakers who want to nourish their home, family and community. I am most proud of our humble beginnings making gluten free, refined sugar-free, teething biscuits in my kitchen from home-made flour I made from Hawaiian taro root. I couldn’t find what I needed at the grocery store, so I made it myself. My intent for sharing is to empower others to be active participants in their own personal and their family’s health which will create a ripple effect in your community too.

Some of the challenges of making an uncommon food like canoe plant flour is there isn’t anyone to contract manufacture for your special product. There aren’t large scale mills or processing in Hawaii (back in 2006 when I started) so I started to purchase machinery and infrastructure from the start, which isn’t advised as a start-up!

Knowing the gaps in food manufacturing and what I wished were available when I started, I’m most excited to offer innovate ways to build a regenerative, community-based food system that is centered around energy-giving, starch crops such as the canoe plants.

I plan to offer a B2B value-added, co-working space for collaborative, grass-roots style food entrepreneurs with a farming inclusion. We also want to hold workshops to share knowledge on how to make their own products from these high in fiber and gluten free ingredients.

I am personally committed to make canoe plant flour more accessible and available which involves collaboration. I believe that purple poi cookie given to me by my great-grandmother was a pivotal moment in my life that kick-started how Taro started showing up in my life which only made sense to me after I had children. These kind of magical moments helped me overcome life’s major chapters and challenges I’ve experienced these past few years. It has been another way my ancestors have been in the physical for me and I was able to remove some of the world’s problems by just surrendering to letting God take over.

One important lesson I’ve learned is to not get too far on that band wagon of talking problems all-day and focusing on what you don’t want but rather be a solution in the what is possible.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?

I like the old Hollywood spots that feels like you are in a vortex of once begone time. My grandparents were both actors during the golden age of Hollywood and I like to visit places I imagine they spent time visiting. My favorite spots are the Brentwood Country Mart,

The Bel Aire hotel for tea, Chateau Marmont for bubbly.

Malibu is where you can be in the mountains yet still feel the ocean breeze so going from the beach to the hills is a perfect day there.

I love the Calamigos ranch and the organic farms still growing healthy food for the community.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
I acknowledge the Kanaka Maoli, the first people of Hawaii who protected, nutured and shared seeds, plants and the sources of life.

I give gratitude to my grandmother Mahealani for the struggles she endured and for her pain was not for nothing. I recognize my great-grandmother Harriet Wahineaea Kaho’opi’i Baldwin who introduced me to my first purple-colored-poi-cookie when I was seven. I know now this was a “seed” that she planted in me to someday sprout a purpose which led me to learn more about my culture through food.

I dedicate my life’s passion of healthy lifeways because of my children Beckley and Elle Mahealani, my official taste-testers who also motivated me to look at Taro in a modern way that would honor my ancestors-those whose shoulders we stand upon.

I’m in awe of those dedicated to the land and getting others to put their hands in the soil; I thank Field Trip Friends in Hawaii who took my family on outdoor classroom explorations to the lo’i kalo farms, which moved me to support local taro farmers.

To the University of Hawaii Agricultural Incubator Program (now GoFarm) for consulting with me in those first baby steps.

This journey is dedicated to all citizens of the world that relate to Hawaii’s special ancestral story so that they might find their own culture and heritage is preserved through sacred seeds and food. The Hawaiian cultural renaissance reconnected our ancestral knowledge. Today, one way this knowledge is revived is through cultural plants such as Taro.

Website: www.voyagingfoods.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/voyagingfoods/

Linkedin: @brynnfoster

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/voyagingfoods

Image Credits
Ana Monique, Claudia Cox, Jyoti Mau, Linny Morris