The Food Startups Podcast

"You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future." - Steve Jobs Kellee James exemplifies this quote. Looking at her experience, one can connect the dots and trace why she was able to start a food commodities exchange. Mercaris allows buyers and sellers of raw commodities to meet and trade online. Customers include Whole Foods Market, Michael Foods, Perdue Farms, and others. They make it possible for "everyone in the supply chain, from farmers to food manufacturers, to track prices, volumes and other statistics for organic corn, or non-GMO soybeans." Prior to Mercaris, Kellee spent five years at the Chicago Climate Exchange(CCX), the first electronic trading platform and registry for spot, futures and options contracts on carbon, sulfur, clean energy and other environmental products. In 2009, she was appointed by President Barack Obama as a White House Fellow where she advised members of the administ