Food Lab Opens With Edible Business Conference At Stony Brook Southampton

Just out of college, Andy Arons moved to Manhattan with every intention of starting law school.It was a best-laid plan. Instead, in 1981, Mr. Arons found himself shipping in quality foreign ingredients from New Zealand, Holland, Italy and Paris, and selling them to New York chefs, all under the name Flying Foods International, with the help of his housemate, Walter Martin.

Now a food authority with 35 years of experience and a new partner, Adam Hartman, Mr. Arons owns Gourmet Garage, and he will be part of a panel that will discuss the growing food business world at the first-ever Edible Business Conference, kicking off Friday as part of the new Food Lab at Stony Brook Southampton.

Over the course of three days, some of today’s leading thinkers in food business, media and policy—among them Mr. Arons—will gather for a series of panels to discuss the path toward healthy regional food systems.

“We are in the middle of an incredible food basket on the East Coast, and the infrastructure is just being built to have food 12 months from the East Coast. And this generation is going to experience it,” Mr. Arons explained during a recent telephone interview, adding, “We shifted to a locavore mindset with the great farmers and local growers from the Hudson Valley or Long Island. Now, people want locally grown food. They want to know where it comes from and who grew it.”

The idea for the conference was born two years ago when Brian Halweil, editor in chief of Edible East End magazine, met Geoffrey Drummond, director of the Food Lab.

“We were on parallel paths speaking to the college about possible food endeavors—me from the food ed perspective, he from the food media perspective,” explained Mr. Halweil, who will be appointed director of food literacy at the Food Lab later this year. “The panelists are drawn from both the East End food and food business landscape, complemented by a good share of folks from New York City, the Hudson Valley and the region. And we tried to get people in a diversity of links in the food chain—from producers and farmers, to food store owners, to food policy makers.”

The Food Lab’s three main branches—education, media and enterprise—each will be tackled by two dozen panelists and moderators, among them chef Cesare Casella of Salumeria Rosa in New York. He will participate in one of Saturday’s five lectures alongside chef Ariane Daguin of D’Artagnan, and Montauk’s own Dock-to-Dish founder, Sean Barrett.

As a general rule, Mr. Casella said, he never cooks with an ingredient that is not in season. He never forces a dish. “I think that this is something that was more common in Italy and around Europe, but now in New York it is very common for chefs to cook with this mentality,” he said. “Your ingredients should be regional, fresh, bright and happy.”

Tanya Steel, former editor in chief of Epicurious—an online fount of food advice, recipes and tutorials—is a panelist for the food tech and media panel, and will discuss the drastic changes in the way that food is publicized.

“When I first started out at Food & Wine in the late ’80s, food media was dominated by cookbooks and magazines. And then, in the ’90s, food TV,” Ms. Steel explained. “It was a top-down strata that was controlled by corporate gatekeepers.

“But now, with the advent of the internet and social media, it’s all been democratized,” she continued. “It’s an open field, with people from all over the world, of all ages, who have become participants, commentators, opinionators, reviewers, recipe developers ... via blogs, websites [and] reviews ... It allows creativity and great ideas to come from every corner.”

Not only has the list of self-proclaimed epicures grown, but the East End food community has exploded, as well, especially over the last decade. It’s “mind-boggling,” Mr. Halweil said.

“You can search the back issues of Edible East End for evidence,” he quipped. “There has been an explosion of new food and farming businesses on the East End and that will continue to trend. I’ve heard about three new coffee brands on the South Fork just this season.”

The same can be said of Long Island wines, Mr. Arons said.

“In 20 years, Long Island wine is going to be world class,” he said, “and everyone has to get on board and support.”

The inaugural Edible Business Conference will kick off on Friday, June 5, with a reception from 5 to 8 p.m. in Chancellor Hall at Stony Brook Southampton, as part of the new Food Lab. Panels will be held on Saturday, June 6, and Sunday, June 7, on campus. Tickets for the conference are $159. Chef Jason Weiner of Almond restaurants will prepare a four-course meal for attendees on Saturday evening at 7 p.m. Tickets are $75. For more information, visit thefoodlab.org.