Meet the core founders of the modern food swapping movement. We have spread the swap love across the US, Canada, and abroad by answering new hosts’ questions, describing food swapping to the media, and building communities around sharing food.
Food Swap Network Founders
Kate Payne is the blogger and author behind the books The Hip Girl’s Guide to Homemaking (HarperCollins, 2011) and The Hip Girl’s Guide to the Kitchen (HarperCollins, 2014). Kate co-founded the modern food swapping movement with Megan Paska (below) in Brooklyn with the advent of BK Swappers in March of 2010. She now lives in Austin, TX and hosts food/jar swaps and invites friends over often to watch and participate in canning adventures. She posts small-batch canning recipes, gluten-free baking projects, DIY cleaning ideas, and other creative home improvisations to her blog.
Emily Han is a Los Angeles-based naturalist, herbalist, writer, and educator focusing on intersections of nature, culture, and food. Emily is the founder of LA Food Swap and author of Wild Drinks and Cocktails: Handcrafted Squashes, Shrubs, Switchels, Tonics, and Infusions to Mix at Home and Wild Remedies: How to Forage Healing Foods and Craft Your Own Herbal Medicine.
Advisors
Bethany Rydmark is a landscape architect and an eighth generation Oregonian with an appetite for equitable, sustainable, and meaningful food. After finding her cupboards overloaded with experiments-gone-right, she co-founded Portland’s first food swap in 2010 as a way to diversify her pantry and mingle with neighbors.
Megan Paska is a Brooklyn, NY-based beekeeper, vegetable gardener, and chicken wrangler. She is also an instructor at learning facilities like the New York Botanical Gardens and 3rd Ward. When she doesn’t have her face buried in a bee hive or a book, she is a part-time farmer at Newton Farm Collective in West Kill, NY. You can read more about her life at
Kim Christensen is founder and co-organizer of the MPLS Swappers in Minneapolis, Minnesota. This gluten-free foodie writes the popular allergy-friendly blog Affairs of Living. When she’s not swapping or blogging, Kim can often be found leading cooking and canning demonstrations, or participating in farm-to-table foods events around the Twin Cities area.
Additional thanks to…
Dana Harrison of Eleven Design Initiative and Well Preserved for designing our Food Swap Network logo and background
Mandy Ellerton, Community Organizer and MPLS Swappers Co-host, for compiling our DIY Food Swap Toolkit