Sponsored By
The Power List

The annual NRN Power List is the definitive list of industry leaders who are not only setting trends today, but also shaping them for tomorrow.

Fred Iutzi is working to develop Kernza, a sustainable perennial grain that could feed a growing world populationFred Iutzi is working to develop Kernza, a sustainable perennial grain that could feed a growing world population

Meet the technology innovators on Nation’s Restaurant News’ 2020 Power List.

Bret Thorn, Senior Food Editor

January 22, 2020

2 Min Read
Nation's Restaurant News logo in a gray background | Nation's Restaurant News

“The problem that agriculture has faced for 10,000 years is it started with the wrong hardware,” Fred Iutzi, president of The Land Institute, a research organization in Salina, Kan., told attendees of the 2018 Menus of Change conference at The Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, N.Y.

He was referring to the fact that all the grains we grow and eat, which make up most of the calories we consume, are annual plants. We need to replant them each year, and each time we do that we lose a little topsoil. Over time, the land becomes useless, people go hungry and civilizations crumble — some people theorize that soil erosion was a contributing factor to the fall of the Roman Empire.

THE POWER LIST

powerlist_banner_20202.jpg

As the global population approaches 8 billion, we need all the topsoil we can get.

So Iutzi and The Land Institute are developing Kernza, a perennial wheat derived from intermediate wheatgrass.

Perennial plants hold on to topsoil and burrow their roots deep into the ground, sequestering carbon and making the ground more fertile, not less.

Since 2003, guided by lead scientist Lee DeHaan, The Land Institute has been breeding these plants based on yield, seed size, disease resistance and other traits — like holding on to its seeds until it’s time to harvest, something wild plants don’t tend to do.

Iutzi and his team have made progress, and Kernza is commercially available in niche markets. They’ve also attracted investors, like General Mills’ Cascadia Farms, which agreed in 2017 to buy some, saying its sweet and nutty taste lends itself to cereals and snacks. General Mills also donated $500,000 to the University of Minnesota to support further research.

Now they’re seeking to expand the planted acreage from 1,500 to a million and eventually to make Kernza a mainstream grain.

Contact Bret Thorn at [email protected]

Follow him on Twitter: @foodwriterdiary

About the Author

Bret Thorn

Senior Food Editor, Nation's Restaurant News

Senior Food & Beverage Editor

Bret Thorn is senior food & beverage editor of Nation’s Restaurant News and Restaurant Hospitality.

Hi is responsible for spotting and reporting on F&B trends across the country for both publications. 

He is the co-host of a podcast, Menu Talk with Pat and Bret, which features interviews with chefs, food & beverage authorities, and other experts in foodservice operations.

From 2005 to 2008 he also wrote the Kitchen Dish column for The New York Sun, covering restaurant openings and chefs’ career moves in New York City.

He joined Nation’s Restaurant News in 1999 after spending about five years in Thailand, where he wrote articles about business, banking and finance as well as restaurant reviews and food columns for Manager magazine and Asia Times newspaper. He joined Restaurant Hospitality’s staff in 2016 while retaining his position at NRN. 

A magna cum laude graduate of Tufts University in Medford, Mass., with a bachelor’s degree in history, and a member of Phi Beta Kappa, Thorn also studied traditional French cooking at Le Cordon Bleu Ecole de Cuisine in Paris. He spent his junior year of college in China, studying Chinese language, history and culture for a semester each at Nanjing University and Beijing University. While in Beijing, he also worked for ABC News during the protests and ultimate crackdown in and around Tiananmen Square in 1989.

Thorn’s monthly column in Nation’s Restaurant News won the 2006 Jesse H. Neal National Business Journalism Award for best staff-written editorial or opinion column.

He served as president of the International Foodservice Editorial Council, or IFEC, in 2005.

Thorn wrote the entry on comfort food in the Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America, 2nd edition, published in 2012. He also wrote a history of plated desserts for the Oxford Companion to Sugar and Sweets, published in 2015.

He was inducted into the Disciples d’Escoffier in 2014.

A Colorado native originally from Denver, Thorn lives in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Bret Thorn’s areas of expertise include food and beverage trends in restaurants, French cuisine, the cuisines of Asia in general and Thailand in particular, restaurant operations and service trends. 

Bret Thorn’s Experience: 

Nation’s Restaurant News, food & beverage editor, 1999-Present
New York Sun, columnist, 2005-2008 
Asia Times, sub editor, 1995-1997
Manager magazine, senior editor and restaurant critic, 1992-1997
ABC News, runner, May-July, 1989

Education:
Tufts University, BA in history, 1990
Peking University, studied Chinese language, spring, 1989
Nanjing University, studied Chinese language and culture, fall, 1988 
Le Cordon Bleu Ecole de Cuisine, Cértificat Elémentaire, 1986

Email: [email protected]

Social Media:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bret-thorn-468b663/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bret.thorn.52
Twitter: @foodwriterdiary
Instagram: @foodwriterdiary

Subscribe Nation's Restaurant News Newsletters
Get the latest breaking news in the industry, analysis, research, recipes, consumer trends, the latest products and more.

You May Also Like