Anya Fernald

Belcampo employs over three hundred people in total on its California organic farms, butcher shops and restaurants, as well as its unique, luxury agritourism destination in Belize.

Anya developed her expertise in sustainable food and business management with two decades of hands-on experience in high-quality premium foods. After graduating from Wesleyan University, Anya worked implementing business and marketing plans for small-scale cheesemakers in Sicily for a European Union rural development initiative. She directed a micro-investment program for the Slow Food Foundation in Northern Italy for four years. After returning to her home state of California in 2006, she built two social-venture food businesses (one was sold, the other was a one-time event) she founded a small advisory firm that developed over two dozen profitable, values-driven food businesses in its three years of activity.

Anya has been recognized as one of the 40 under 40 by Food & Wine, named a Nifty Fifty by The New York Times, appeared in a lengthy profile in The New Yorker’s “Food Issue” in 2014, and served as a regular judge on Iron Chef America on the Food Network for the 2009, 2010, and 2011 seasons. She appeared as a guest judge on the finale episode of Iron Chef Gauntlet in April 2017. Anya also co-authored two books for Slow Food’s international publishing house as well as her debut cookbook, Home Cooked, that was released in spring 2016 with Ten Speed Press.