Ellen Malloy and the U.S. Farmer and Rancher Alliance

Before I post for the A to Z Challenge I HAVE to share this post from my friend, Ellen Malloy. She is one of the people that will help us reach the "tipping" point where sustsainable farming and good local food "spreads like wildfire."

Ellen:

Thank you, thank you, thank you for attending and for asking tough questions and for getting pissed off, and for not backing down and for dropping the f-bomb! Hopefully, it was a "thought bomb" as well!

http://backyarditarian.com/2012/03/29/just-because-the-canary-is-alive/

 Here is Ellen's bio:

Ellen Malloy is the creator of Restaurant Intelligence Agency. Founded in 2007, RIA connects restaurants to audiences that matter — the media and diners — via simple, easy-to-use software. Her goal is to help chefs use the internet to promote themselves and their restaurants by redefining restaurant marketing and by building a strong, sustainable community of chef-focused restaurant industry professionals, diners, and media.

 After a successful career in PR and Marketing, Ellen was determined to learn the business of cooking from the ground up, working for two of Chicago’s most esteemed chefs, Michael Kornick and Jacky Pluton, and then rounded out this on-the-job training with a culinary education from the Culinary School of Kendall College, where she graduated at the top of her class, and later earned a Sommelier Certificate from the Court of Master Sommeliers.

After completing culinary school, she opened up shop as a restaurant publicist. From 1997 to 2008, she turned her company, Paperclip, Inc., into one of the country’s premier restaurant PR firms, representing Michael Jordan’s restaurants and nationally acclaimed chefs such as Paul Kahan and Rick Tramonto.

Identifying the coming shift of information distribution, back in 2007 she anticipated how inefficient those practices were becoming. Jettisoning the standard structure, she moved her PR operation online, building a service to handle the foundation of good restaurant PR — information distribution — at a fraction of the cost of traditional PR. The RIA website was designed to house and archive an affordable digital version of a paper press kit with room for marketing events and promotions.

As an expert and insider in the restaurant industry (recenlty ranked #9 in the list of the most influential people in Chicago's food scene) Ellen is building tools that help chefs discover that they can support their business by honoring their craft and expressing their individuality; help media discover the true voice of the respected artisan chef; and help diners discover new chefs they can follow over the arc of their careers.