PROFESSIONALLY
I am....Available For Lunch. And available for new opportunities.
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I am an experienced brand marketing manager at a natural packaged goods food company, as well as an enthusiastic food shopper, home cook and food industry researcher. I'm open to new opportunities. And I am available for lunch. Almost every day! We can meet at a cafe and discuss my favorite topic - food. Perhaps it is your favorite topic as well.
ABOUT ME
I am also available for freelance work.
Resume: www.linkedin.com/in/davidbittman
Website: AvailableForLunch.com
Contact: dbittman@gmail.com
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COPY WRITING - EDITING - RESEARCH - MARKETING STRATEGY & PLANS -
BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT - BRAND BUILDING - SELL SHEETS - WEBSITE PROOF READING
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PERSONALLY
Besides being available for lunch, freelancing, building this website, and exploring and documenting food related websites...I am passionate and intrigued by the food we buy and eat, how we buy and how we eat, and how its all changed in recent years. I enjoy experiencing new flavors and old favorites.
Both of my parents worked in a supermarket bakery department while I was growing up. Pathmark, as the store was known, recently became defunct as part of the bankruptcy of the A&P supermarket chain.
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As department manager, my father would take me to the bakery on occasional early Sundays mornings. I was in awe of a quiet supermarket with its bounttiful shelves of food packages. And in the bakery, there was the aromas of baked goods and huge 5 gallon buckets of doughnut jelly filling. At other times, I would visit my mother, watching her wrap baked goods for the shelves, working extremely hard, coming home extremely tired, and ironically, not having eaten many baked goods at all during the day. My father, on the other hand, did his fair share of eating, as did his brother, who was also a Pathmark bakery manager.
One day when I was in fifth or sixth grade, my father brought home a brochure from the deli department. It's purpose was to promote all things Swiss Cheese, perhaps published by a cheese promotion council similar to what you will find on this website. I was so intrigued with it, I hung the brochure up in my room, front and back proudly displayed on the wall.
My father got a brochure for each of my classmates, and I handed them out. I don't really rememeber their reaction, but I suppose nobody was taken with them as much as I was.
I was a food geek from an early age. To this day, I am fascinated by the many stakeholers in our food system - the farmers who grow the food, the food companies who distribute, process and package the food, the government who educates and regulates, the commodity associations who promote the foods, and the myriad of other stakeholders in the food system.
I've tried to share my love of food with others, in terms of conversation or cooking or inspiration. My grown children are both food aware - one is very much a "clean eater," while the other likes to cook and bake. And with Available For Lunch, I hope to continue sharing the joys of food and their stories.
There's such an abundance of information available on any given subject - online and published – that it boggles the mind! Food is no exception – there are so many stories to tell with this intriguing topic.
Learn. Eat. Repeat. That’s the reason for Available For Lunch – I started this website to illustrate aspects of the food industry that are sometimes overlooked or not always recognized or explored, such as:
ABOUT "AVAILABLE FOR LUNCH"
FARMS & AGRICULTURE - FOOD PROCESSING - PACKAGING - FLAVORS - GOVERNMENT REGULATIONS - RECIPES - SUSTAINABILITY - FOOD CULTURE - BRANDS - PROMOTION COUNCILS - INGREDIENT TRANSPARENCY - EATING WELL - RETAILING - FOOD POLICY & POLITICS - ACTIVISM - HISTORY - WORLD ISSUES - RESTAURANTS - MARKETING - SHOPPING TRENDS - HEALTH - and on and on...
When describing how much is written about food, the words plethora [a large or excessive amount of something] and myriad [a countless or extremely great number] come to mind. Unlimited information abounds in this enlightened age, yet it may not help us to live with a sense of well-being unless we are more aware and take action.
Available For Lunch is a resource and inspiration. To eat better and fresher, to become more educated about our foods system, and better understand our food choices. The heavy lifting has been done for you, or in this case, the laborious task of searching endless websites, to bring you the best of the best. A curated selection of categories, if you will, to fuel your hunger for interesting and relevant information. To supplement your own internet searches, to find the obscure, unknown, but helpful websites, and to offer food for thought with a unique, educational perspective.
As food consumers, our challenges are numerous. Dust off our our cookbooks, and create a healthy (or indulgent) meal, experiment with new ingredients that we have not previously used. Expand our knowledge of issues, problems and successes in our food system. Aspire to be more than just consumers of food – learn more about the source of our food and the entire chain – from farm to processing plant to table, restaurant or grocery store…and the politics, science and corporations that guide the system.
A plethora of information is available about food. Can enough be written about the need for good food, where our food comes from, and who is promoting this food? I think not – we will always hunger for different perspectives in our search for reason and truth….and, of course, hunger for a decent bite to eat.
Feel free to send an email to comment or suggest other avenues for the website to explore. Eat well and ponder more. Take part in the ongoing nationwide food conversation. Learn. Eat. Repeat.
