The Julia Child Award Recipient for 2026
Sam Kass
Sam Kass is the former Senior Policy Advisor for Nutrition in the Obama administration, Executive Director of Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move! Campaign and the Obama family chef. He is a Partner in Acre Venture Partners.
The $50,000 grant will be split between three nonprofits:
Urban Growers Collective is a Chicago-based, Black- and women-led nonprofit farm that works to build economic opportunity for BIPOC urban growers and makers, mitigate food insecurity, and increase access to high-quality, affordable, culturally affirming, and nutritionally dense food on Chicago’s South and West Sides.
American Farmland Trust works to protect America’s farmland, support farmers and ranchers, and promote sustainable farming practices through advocacy, research, and hands-on programs.
Founded in 1985 at the height of the AIDS pandemic, God’s Love We Deliver is a nonprofit that improves the health and well-being of people living with life-altering illnesses by providing medically tailored meals, nutrition counseling, and education at no cost to those in need.
About Sam Kass
Sam Kass is the former Senior Policy Advisor for Nutrition in the Obama administration, Executive Director of Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move! Campaign and the Obama family chef. He is a Partner in Acre Venture Partners.
After cooking for the Obamas in Chicago for two years, Sam joined the White House kitchen staff in 2009. During his White House tenure, he took on several additional roles including Executive Director of First Lady Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move!” campaign and Senior White House Policy Advisor for Nutrition. Sam is the first person in the history of the White House to have a position in the Executive Office of the President and the Residence. As one of the First Lady’s longest-serving advisors, he helped the First Lady create the first major vegetable garden at the White House since Eleanor Roosevelt’s victory garden.
Currently Sam is a Partner at Acre Venture Partners. Acre is a venture capital fund investing in the future of food with a mission to improve human and environmental health in the food system. The fund focuses on early stage, highly disruptive impactful companies in the food system focused on agriculture, supply chain and consumer.
In 2011, Fast Company included Sam in their list of 100 Most Creative People, and in 2012, he helped create the American Chef Corps, which is dedicated to promoting diplomacy through culinary initiatives. He is an MIT Media Lab fellow and a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader. He is a graduate of the University of Chicago.
Sam is the author of Eat a Little Better: Great Flavor, Good Health, Better World, which was published by Clarkson Potter on April 17, 2018 and The Last Supper: How to Overcome the Coming Food Crisis published by The Crown Publishing Group, available Oct 07, 2025.