Meet Jeff Bednar | Farmer & Agripreneur

We had the good fortune of connecting with Jeff Bednar and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Jeff, how does your business help the community or world?
Profound Foods is a Dallas area Food Hub that provides a sales channel for over 40 local and environmentally sustainable farmers, ranchers, and producers. We keep the supply chain short and work primarily with farms that are within two ours of our retail customers and the restaurants we supply. That makes a profound environmental impact with less “food miles” and pollution while we work with farms with sustainable practices that are regenerative. A profound impact on our community by supplying more nutrient-dense foods that are better for their health. We also believe that farmers should be able to earn a living wage and get to keep as much of the money from the sale of goods and get to set the prices they want to receive.

Alright, so for those in our community who might not be familiar with your business, can you tell us more?
Profound Microfarms was founded because we wanted to make a positive impact on the health of our family, our community, and our environment. We’ve had many challenges along the way, the first one was we bought the farm before we knew how to grow! Jeff had never even been successful in keeping a house plant alive. We spent 3 years building, learning, becoming a Master Gardener and certified Permaculture designer, and traveling the country visiting farms and going to agriculture conventions. In those years we made a ton of relationships with other farmers, chefs, and our community. Through collaboration, we’ve been able to do some really special things. We founded Profound Foods about two years ago. Profound Foods is a food hub that helps local farmers, ranchers, and food artisans get to new markets, with deliveries and logistics, marketing, and accounting. With our recent pivot to retail due to COVID, we found a new market that was hungry for value-added items like meal kits, salad dressings, pasta sauce, and more. We partnered with Chef Nick Walker to help launch the Profound Kitchen.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
Our favorite spots around town to dine at are Homewood, Harvest Seasonal Kitchen, Petra & the Beast, Uchi, Fearings, Georgie by Curtis Stone, Jose, Rye, Patina Green, Revolver Taco, Urban Taco, amongst others! Nothing’s better than going to a restaurant and eating food that we grew here on the farm that’s been prepared by a chef!

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
This shoutout is to the person that’s offered me the most support and been my biggest cheerleader, my wife, Lee Bednar. Lee has always supported me with the crazy ideas I’ve had, the three businesses we’ve launched. She’s my partner, my sounding board, my devil’s advocate when I need it and so much more. She has a more than full time job, takes care of our children, cooks for the family, and keeps a 3000sqft garden going year-round. She’s amazing and I’m thankful to be married to her.

Website: www.profoundfoods.com
Instagram: www.instagram.com/profoundfoods
Facebook: www.facebook.com/profoundfoods

Image Credits
Shawn Roller, Nick Burton, and Elizabeth Lavin