Civil Eats is an independent, nonprofit digital publisher covering the U.S. food system. Founded in 2009, we provide balanced, high-quality journalism that educates policymakers, leaders, and consumers, while influencing the national conversation and providing a critical resource for mainstream media. Over the last 15 years, we have built a reputation for nuanced and trusted solutions-oriented reporting.
We are digitally native and laser-focused on serving our readers at a tumultuous time for the media industry. We are proud that we have never accepted venture capital funding or advertising, instead relying on a membership program that has been successful since its launch in 2015. We have invested in a membership manager and audience engagement editor to support this model and launched an investigations desk in response to reader feedback. We have also explored numerous ways to engage with our readers beyond our website, including through various social media channels, surveys, a Slack channel, video salons, and successful newsletters that serve as a significant traffic driver. In 2021, for example, we launched an award-winning member newsletter, The Deep Dish, that explores one topic each month in great detail.
Our commitment to reporting on food justice and Indigenous Foodways is unparalleled in the media landscape. Our tiny, nonprofit newsroom’s award-winning investigations desk also focuses on exposing corporate power in the food system and has been nominated alongside The Washington Post, The New York Times, and The New Yorker.
To reach new audiences, Civil Eats has partnered with several media organizations including NBC News, The Atlantic, TIME Magazine, The Guardian, HuffPost, PBS/ITVS, New York Magazine, Eater, Salon, Slate, and PRI, among others. We have also received special funding for investigations supported by Civil Eats, including the Pulitzer Center, and we were the first non-Native organization to receive funding from the First Nations Development Institute to support Indigenous Foodways coverage.
Civil Eats was named the James Beard Foundation’s 2014 Publication of the Year, was inducted into the Library of Congress in 2019, and awarded the 2020 International Association of Culinary Professionals (IACP) digital media award for Best Group Food Blog.
Our investigations have received several awards and accolades. Our investigative series documenting Walmart and its founding family’s influence over the American food system was nominated for a 2024 James Beard Media Award for excellence in investigative reporting. This is the second consecutive James Beard Foundation nomination for Civil Eats’ investigative reporting; our series about animal agriculture workers won the top honor in 2023. Our story about agricultural health impacts on farmworker communities near California’s Salton Sea also received a 2024 James Beard Media Award nomination for best health reporting.
Civil Eats reporters were also recognized in the National Association of Agricultural Journalists’ (NAAJ) 2024 Writing Contest. Their awards included first place for news reporting; third place and an honorable mention for feature reporting; third place in the next generation/young writer category; and an honorable mention in the ongoing reporting/series category.
