Alice Waters

SPROUTS HONORARY ADVISOR

Chez Panisse Foundation and owner of Chez Panisse Restaurant, founder of The Edible Schoolyard.

As a chef, restaurant-owner, humanitarian, author, and advocate of sustainable agriculture, Alice Waters has never stopped shaping the way we cook, eat, and think about food.

We can’t imagine a better person to be on our Board of Advisors than the woman who pioneered the local food movement. Alice Waters was advocating for the use of seasonal, sustainable ingredients long before these terms became buzzwords on menus across the world. It is her dedication to local farmers and delicious ingredients that inspires us to continue teaching a generation of future eaters how to cook with fresh, local food.

The opening of the farm-to-table restaurant Chez Panisse was Alice’s first mark on the food world, but by no means her last. After establishing a network of local producers and a crowd of loyal followers that supported the restaurant’s daily-changing menu, Alice continued to promote local farming through the Edible Schoolyard and School Lunch Initiative, which gave students at the Berkeley Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School access to gardens and a cooking classroom.

It’s not just children that Alice advocates for when it comes to accessing fresh ingredients and farm education; her Garden Project works to supply San Francisco County Jail with fresh produce through a gardening program that allows incarcerated individuals to build community and gain farming experience to prepare them for future job opportunities. This lifetime of work has earned Alice titles such as Best Chef in America, Best Restaurant in America, and Humanitarian of the Year, along with awards like the National Humanities Medal and James Beard Lifetime Achievement Award.

We are honored to call Alice Waters a member of the Sprouts team, and will forever look to her for inspiration and creativity both in and out of the kitchen.