Eat REAL 1094 views

Organization Overview

The nonprofit United States Healthful Food Council (USHFC) and Institute for Responsible Nutrition (IRN) were both created five years ago with a similar mission: transform our food environment and reverse the epidemics of diet-related diseases such as diabetes, obesity, cancer and heart-disease. Founded on different coasts, but with complementary programs, the organizations decided to merge in the summer of 2016 to create "Eat REAL".

The new Board of Eat REAL views the merger as a compelling opportunity to transform the future of the food industry and has launched a search to recruit a new Chief Executive Officer to lead the merged organizations into its next phase of growth. The new headquarters of the Eat REAL is opening February 2017 in downtown San Francisco, with staff spread between Washington DC, Chicago and Nashville, and supplemented by a nationwide network of registered dietitians that work under contract.

Recognizing the major impact that our food environment has on our food choices, as well as the growing influence of the food industry, the primary program of Eat REAL has been designed to alter the food industry’s incentives to help increase the production and consumption of healthier, more sustainable food. The Responsible Epicurean and Agricultural Leadership (REAL) certification program, or  REAL Certified® is a points-based nutrition and environmental sustainability best practices certification program, which has been used to certify over 400 restaurants and foodservice establishments across 32 states and Canada. 

We believe voluntary, third party certification programs such as LEED, the non-GMO Project, and the Rainforest Alliance have proven to be an effective way to leverage the power and efficiency of the marketplace for social impact. And like LEED is changing the value of green building, the REAL trust mark is quickly emerging as the beacon for consumers seeking healthful and sustainable food choices. By combining the entrepreneurial, revenue generating, and business-friendly approach, of USHFC with the IRN’s nutrition science and medical expertise, Eat REAL is uniquely positioned to collaborate with the food industry to make the healthful and sustainable choices necessary for  children and their families’ lives not cut short by the epidemics of diet-related diseases.