Chefs, business owners, authors, media personalities, food justice advocates, farmers, and culinary and beverage entrepreneurs and innovators are gathering in D.C. April 23-25 for the fourth annual Black Women in Food Summit.
This year’s theme, “Ascend: Together in Purpose in the Face of Change,” looks at the rocky road in businesses nationwide, all the while celebrating the special influence Black women have on the food and beverage industries.
“We know Black women are drivers of food culture,” said Nina Oduro, co-creator of the event. “By building various communities of Black women who work in food, we can offer other programs beyond the summit.”
Oduro and Maame Boakye, co-founders of Dine Diaspora, started the annual convening to foster a space for sharing, nurturing, and building toward the future.
After three years welcoming approximately 400 attendees, the two Ghanaian-born businesswomen are expanding the summit, with a goal of 1,000 registrants.
“We outgrew our previous space, so we will be at the Capital Turnaround in Southeast D.C.,” Boakye told The Informer. “There is a larger area for the very popular Marketplace, where entrepreneurs will sell products and offer food tastings.”
What to Expect at the 2026 Summit
More than 40 speakers, breakout sessions, and networking opportunities will be available for attendees to enjoy during this wide-ranging, three-day summit experience.
A variety of agenda programming will meet one of the summit’s objectives: building special interest groups around specific issues in the food industry.
“We will also have a special Executive Track with limited sign-up,” Boakye said. “That session will delve more into the nitty-gritty of food business management.”
Sessions include “Reinventing the Restaurant: Leadership, Survival, and the Future of Hospitality,” “Selling the Product: What It Really Takes to Win,” “Wine Pairing for the People,” “Your Turn to Host: Supper Clubs & Events,” and “Food as Medicine: Caring for Ourselves, Healing Our Communities in Africa and the Diaspora.”
“We’re going to be hosting a food as medicine panel at this upcoming conference and every year it’s been different themes touching on advocacy, leadership, and really showing that there are women in the food space that need to be a part of these conversations and need to be inspired and know that they have an opportunity to make an impact,” Tambra Stevenson, founder and CEO of Women Advancing Nutrition Dietetics and Agriculture (WANDA), told The Informer at a summit preview in Northwest D.C. on March 26.
Among the list of several speakers and presenters are: Toni Tipton-Martin, a three-time James Beard Book Award-winning author and editor, and a cast member “America’s Test Kitchen” on PBS; Robin McBride, co-founder and president of McBride Sisters Wine Company, the creators of Black Girl Wine; I-Shi Patterson Stuart, vice president of operations and administration at the Restaurant Association Metropolitan Washington (RAMW); and Angela Johnson, head of global delivery partnerships at Uber Eats.
Returning to the summit will be the pitch competition presented by the New Voices Foundation. The competition has entrepreneurs present new food or beverage products, along with a marketing strategy, and financial projections. A panel of judges will determine the first- and second-place recipients for financial support of their business ideas.
“We work to support entrepreneurs of color,” said Marie Clark, executive director of New Visions Foundation, which is in its third year of supporting the Black Women in Food Summit.
The foundation also has a relationship with Sundial Brand, owner of Essence magazine and the Essence Festival. That partnership brings the summit pitch competition to present from some of the festival stages.
“What comes with the financial guidance for the competition winners are programming, mentoring, coaching, and networking opportunities, to help those build their community of peers and stakeholders for their business,” Clark said.
The Importance of the Summit, Coming Back for More
For many participants and sponsors, the annual summit allows them to further their goals toward uplifting Black women working in food advocacy and hospitality industries.
“Our overall mission is empowering Black women and girls to become the food heroes that our community needs through education, advocacy, and innovation,” said Stevenson on her work with WANDA. “And so that shows up by way of our WANDA Academy, where in Ward 8 last year we hosted birth workers to be trained in maternal food as medicine, so they can better support mothers and children.”
The president and CEO of the organization said when she first learned of the Black Women in Food Summit years ago, she ensured WANDA was an inaugural sponsor and has continued to do so ever since.
“[The summit’s] mission aligns [with WANDA’s] and we saw the opportunity to make an investment that focused on the very core audience that we believe needs to be supported,” Stevenson explained. “More than ever now, we are building pipelines for more Black women to be leaders in the food system that’s in lockstep alignment with Black women. It gives us an opportunity to share and expand the conversation and platform.”
Dawn Kelly, who left her corporate job more than 10 years ago to create “The Nourish Spot,” which serves custom smoothies, juices, salads, wraps, and other nutritious eats, praised the Black Women in Food Summit for what it has accomplished in nearly four years.
“What I’ve gotten out of it is community at a high level,” said Kelly, co-founder and CEO of The Nourish Spot in Jamaica, New York. “Not just networking, but real conversations with women who understand the nuances of building in this industry—capital gaps, scaling challenges, representation, and resilience. It’s a space where I don’t have to explain my “why”—it’s already understood.”
Register for the Black Women in Food Summit in Washington, D.C., April 23-25 at blackwomeninfood.org.
