Big Idea, Humble Beginnings
Food Detectives started as a program of the Beecher’s Foundation, sending instructors into classrooms to teach our workshop along with an interactive cooking demonstration.
Food Detectives aims to empower kids with skills to see through food marketing and make informed choices – for themselves, their families, and their communities. Since 2006, we’ve been working to inspire more curious and confident eaters.
Growing to Meet the Demand
By 2018 we had taught over 100,000 Food Detectives in New York and Washington state. The demand for our program was growing beyond our region, and we dreamed of a way to bring our impactful nutrition workshop to schools everywhere.
A Nation of Food Detectives
In 2021 we launched a fully scalable, virtual program that took all the magic of our in-person workshops and put the clicker into the teacher’s hands. We have since more than doubled our numbers and reached all 50 states! Is your classroom next?
The Team Behind the Mission
We’re nonprofit and public health leaders, educators, and big believers in kid-powered change. Our team brings together decades of experience in public health, teaching, social impact, and storytelling—all focused on one goal: giving kids the tools to think for themselves about what they eat.
Laura Paulus
Co-Chair (she/her)
Laura joined The Beecher’s Foundation as an Advisory Board member in 2018 and played a key role in our shift to online learning in 2020. Laura is also the co-founder of the Exponential Health Program, a personalized and effective approach to holistic well-being and health. Her early career was spent developing digital health solutions for some of the largest health companies to help millions of people around the world manage their nutrition goals. She was honored to be named Forbes 30 under 30 for her contributions and impact in the health field.
Deb Eschmeyer
Deb Eschmeyer has built nonprofits from the ground up, run strategy for a Fortune Global 500 company, shaped policy from inside the White House, helped create a new academic program, and run small businesses — a rare combination of experience across the nonprofit, private, and public sectors. An entrepreneur with a relentless passion, she brings a strategist’s mind and a connector’s instinct to building a better social contract.
Her first venture took root on 22 acres in her hometown in rural Ohio, where Deb and her husband grew an organic fruit and vegetable farm while she cofounded FoodCorps, growing the AmeriCorps-based nonprofit into more than 500 schools across 18 states and leading the policy campaign that created mandatory federal funding for farm to school programs. That work led her to the Obama White House, where she served as Executive Director of Mrs. Obama’s Let’s Move! initiative and as President Obama’s Senior Policy Advisor for Nutrition. She later led strategy for Danone North America, the largest public benefit corporation and Certified B Corp in the world, and served on the Biden-Harris Transition Team, following a stint helping launch a new graduate program at Arizona State University’s Swette Center for Sustainable Food Systems. As Founder and Partner of Original Strategies, Deb advises bold leaders and organizations on social change including the organic child nutrition brand Bobbie, Jonathan Haidt’s The Anxious Generation, and Katie Couric’s Hormonal. She is a James Beard Foundation and Xavier University Magis Award recipient.
Jonathan Saturay
Director of Operations (he/they)
Jonathan has had the opportunity to work with students of all ages in the areas of food education, youth leadership, and music. At The Beecher’s Foundation, he has the distinct pleasure of building and cultivating relationships with classroom teachers across the nation who get to experience our Food Detective Workshop firsthand. In addition to his work with the Beecher’s Foundation, Jonathan performs with the SPECTRUM Saxophone Quartet and is a member of Barkada NYC.