They call the logo drawings and animations Doodles, and what started out as a gaff has become a tradition that users anticipate and even collect in some cases.

The first Doodle was a stick figure letting users know that Larry and Sergey (founders) were out of the office attending Burning Man, a cultural festival in the desert. A year later intern Dennis Hwang did a Doodle for Bastille Day and was anointed Head Doodler; he now leads the team of designers and engineers that produce the company’s Doodles.

Today we thought it’d be fun to look back at some of the food-focused Doodles that have delighted users around the world. There are plenty, so we’ve picked a few favorites!

Albert Szent-Gyorgyi’s 118th Birthday

To honor the scientist who discovered Vitamin-C, the Doodle Team turned Google into the distributor of all things rich in Vitamin-C content!

This was the first concept drawing:

Which turned into this finished logo:

More details here.

Magusto 2011

From the Doodle site: “Magusto” is a Portuguese tradition celebrated by all generations: from grandparents, to moms and dads, and little children. On this day, people come together to eat chestnuts, drink new wine and mingle with friends and family.

More details here.

Canadian Thanksgiving 2009

Google swaps their logo pretty much every Thanksgiving holiday, but their ’09 Canadian Thanksgiving logo really stands out, mostly because it’s entirely one color!

More details here.

Valentine’s Day 2007

Valentine’s Day is another regular Doodle holiday, but this subtle offering in 2007 conjures up the delicious memories of chocolate covered strawberries.

Details here. More Valentine’s doodles.

Persian New Year 2009

Shown in United Arab Emirates & Afghanistan in March of ’09, this elegant logo is likely an unknown to most of us.

Details here.

Tomato Festival 2008

In honor of Spain’s Tomato festival, this juicy logo was displayed in August of 2008. This is the festival dubbed Tomatina, during which there’s what amounts to a massive tomato food fight!

Details here.

Halloween 2011

This is probably the most impressive effort yet; imagine putting much effort into your company’s logo for one day!

This is the video that lived on the homepage and showed users the process of carving the massive pumpkins:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPAa7BqgSbw

And here’s the behind the scenes video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=yjG0rmOIngE

More details here.

What are you favorites?

Head over to the Doodle site to check out the hundreds of Doodles from Google over the years. There’s a nice little blurb on the history of Doodles there too. Let us know which ones are your favorites!

We wouldn’t be here without everyone who’s been a part of the early journey here at Foodtree. Food lovers around the world have pitched in to let people know that food transparency is on its way, and today we’d like to expressly thank you for joining us.

You are the ones driving your food communities towards a better tomorrow, and you are the ones celebrating the wonderful things happening in food. Ours is an ambitious goal; to re-imagine our food system as one in which it’s normal to know where our food is from and how it’s been handled. That goal will be fulfilled only through the participation of people all over the world, in every nook and cranny of our food system. It will be fulfilled together, in collaboration with people, organizations, companies, and communities willing to consciously choose to be a part of the system that feeds them.

We look forward to working with you, and hope today’s filled with chocolate and wine!

Share a story of food + love!

Today, on Valentine’s Day, we want to thank you for making a difference and shine the spotlight on you.

We invite you to share with the Foodtree community a story about food that reminds you of Love. Before next Monday, share your story of how food and love are wrapped up into one memory or experience for you with the rest of us (in these comments0, and we’ll pick one to highlight later this week! Winner gets a Foodtree t-shirt sent to their doorstep!

Today we’re featuring Karen Pinchin, a journalist and the co-founder of Rain City Chronicles and about to embark on adventures in culinary school.

Tell us about yourself:
I grew up in Etobicoke, Ont., the daughter of an environmental businessman and a chemist, working at my grandfather’s apple farm on weekends. For the past decade, I’ve primarily been a journalist. I have particular interest in food, which I inherited from my mother (what other 12 year old knows what chocolate “temper” is?”), along with environment, culture and technology. I currently live in Vancouver, BC, in an urban cabin with my fiancee, a goofy chocolate lab and an overzealous cat.

Tell us about your project/business:
After journalism school, I got my start at some very large and mainstream media publications, but quickly found that my interests and abilities were outstripping opportunities in a perilous journalism job market. So I moved to online editing, freelancing for publications like The Walrus and The Globe and Mail, and otherwise trying to support the digital shift towards quality journalism online. I co-founded the Rain City Chronicles, a periodic community-based storytelling series, back in 2009, and that is still going strong. Most recently, though, I quit my job as an editor to head to professional cooking school full-time in January. After that, I’ll be aiming towards writing and editing around food technology, gastronomy and culture.

Has your relationship with food evolved over time? How?
Everyone’s has, I think. But I suppose working on an apple farm at such a young age had a profound impact on my preconceived notions of what our food system should look like. I took for granted that everyone could eat asparagus out of a garden, or knew how to forage for chanterelles. That kind of cheap self-sufficiency was a practical matter, not just a high-end luxury, so it’s strange for me to think about modern-day gourmand-ism as something that’s only accessible to the very rich. It’s mostly about doing something over buying something, which is something I think we’ve lost touch with as a society.

What is your earliest memory about food?
My earliest food memory is probably from the apple farm. I was probably about thirteen or so, and had taken a break from patrolling the orchard (it was pick-your-own, and many careless people would climb trees and break branches or throw apples). I picked a Jonagold apple, which were quite new at the time, that was nearly as large as my head, and laid back in the thigh-high grass. I remember munching on this huge apple, looking up through the trees, watching the fluffy white clouds drift across a Dutch-blue sky as apple juice ran down my cheeks.

What’s most important to you when it comes to buying food – local, organic, fair trade, GMO-free, etc?
Definitely local, and not factory-farmed. Local is important for changing how our food economy is structured, and supporting local entrepreneurs and farmers. However, good food doesn’t have to be “”organic”" to be good. Our apple farm wasn’t organic, but it was a manageable size, my grandfather practiced careful spraying and tree maintenance, and didn’t depend on irrigation to keep the trees alive.

For things we can’t get locally, I think fair-trade chocolate and coffee should be the default, but unfortunately capitalism doesn’t work that way. This makes the fair-trade label necessary, which is too bad. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could assume that trade was fair?

When it comes to GMOs, I think engineering seeds, animals or otherwise that can’t reproduce or support themselves should be outlawed. It’s a horrible, self-sabotaging practice that’s going to bite society in the butt in the long run.

What is the one thing you’d like to see change about the food system?
I’d love to see more grassroots community action around skills-sharing, like foraging, preserving, curing, cooking and otherwise. Right now cities aren’t doing a great job of supporting these movements through grants, etc., but I also don’t believe they should be expected to do all the heavy lifting. Food economy is really important as well; I’ve had friends tell me that it’s cheaper to eat out than to buy the base ingredients. This means they are either wasting too much, or don’t know how to freeze/save/use leftover food, which is a tragedy, and super wasteful.

What is special about food where you live? What’s one thing you would change?
“I live off Commercial Drive, which has a great new seafood store called The Daily Catch, where everything is 100% Ocean Wise. They’re great.

Also: there’s an amazing proliferation of community and school gardens, which is great for teaching our children basic lessons about food that I think we lost over the past few decades. Most importantly though, I think there’s a certain food mentality that is very progressive, and people are open to be pragmatic but also very idealistic. It’s a nice blend.

Change? I’d change the elitism that comes from eating locally, sustainably, etc. It doesn’t make you a better person. It’s just better.

Also, because so many people live in tiny, overpriced apartments and condos, there isn’t as many opportunities for those people to have gardens, etc. This means outrageous real estate prices are the silent killer when it comes to urban gardens.”

What are your favorite ingredients to use when preparing a meal?
Beans! They’re cheap, easy and delicious, and Rancho Gordo is doing a great job of saving certain beans that are at risk of dying out. I save 10 seeds from every packet I buy, and am planning on starting an heirloom bean garden next year.

That and my homemade bacon. It makes everything taste better, and means I have lots of leftover lard to use in cooking.

Also: chipotles in adobo, which I puree and keep in a small container in my fridge keep forever, and can be added to anything for the easiest flavour burst.

What are your favorite foods?
French fries, Parisian-style composed salads, and my mom’s ribs.

Other than food, what are you particularly excited about right now?
Storytelling!
(Rain City Chronicles Website & Twitter)

And charcuterie.

Tell us about a food-related project that has inspired you:
More private community gardens on TOP of buildings.

Where can people find you both online and offline?
You can find me online at karenpinchin.com or on Twitter @karenpinchin

Just the other day, the video of Stephen Ritz’s speech at TEDxManhattan (we covered the event here) hit the internet and it is hands down one of the most inspiring speeches about food that we’ve come across. Many on our team caught it live, but now it’s available for everyone to watch and we highly recommend that you take a break for 15 minutes and do so.

With that in mind, here is that video and three others that are well worth your time.

Stephen Ritz – Green Bronx Machine – Growing Our Way Into A New Economy

Stephen Ritz is a South Bronx teacher/administrator. With the help of extended student and community family they have grown over 25,000 pounds of vegetables in the Bronx while generating extraordinary academic performance. His Bronx classroom features the first indoor edible wall in NYC DOE which routinely generates enough produce to feed 450 students healthy meals and trains the youngest nationally certified workforce in America. Stephen has consistently moved attendance from 40% to 93% daily, helped fund/create 2,200 youth jobs, captured the US EPA Award for transforming mindsets and landscapes in NYC, recently won the ABC Above and Beyond Award, helped earn his school the first ever Citywide Award of Excellence from the NYC Strategic Alliance for Health and attributes these results directly to growing vegetables in school. His speech at Columbia University, “From Crack to Cucumbers,” along with the release of a You-Tube Video (Urban Farming NYC) resulted in a national following including an invite to the White House Garden. Dedicated to harvesting hope and cultivating minds, Stephen dreams of opening a nationally replicable Career Technical Education public school in the poorest Congressional District in America rooted in urban agriculture, green and sustainable initiatives. For more information, visit www.greenbronxmachine.com

2011 TEDxManhattan Fellow: Stefani Bardin

Stefani is producing a body of work that explores the influence of corporate culture and industrial food production on our food system. These investigations take the form of single and multi-channel videos and immersive and interactive installations. Her current project is working with gastroenterologist Dr. Braden Kuo at Harvard University where they just completed the first ever clinical study to use the M2A™ and SmartPill devices to look at how the human body responds to processed versus whole foods. She is an

Honorary Resident at Eyebeam Art +Technology Center in New York and teaches in the School of Art, Media and Technology at Parsons The New School for Design and in the Food Studies Program at The New School for Public Engagement.

LOCAL – A Short Documentary

Do you know where your food comes from?

In the past ten years, the organic food industry has become big business and consumers have been left wondering exactly what the word “Organic” means and how they can really know what they’re eating.

With the rise of farmer’s markets and more and more chefs sourcing their ingredients from local farms, consumers are now able to meet and talk to the people who are growing their food.

LOCAL discusses the rise of the local food movement, the challenges of sourcing locally and how it’s become a growing part of the Austin, Texas food scene.

This documentary is the November film in my 12 Films Project, where I make one short film every month in 2011. To see the other films or to learn more about the project, visit the website at:

12filmsproject.com

Birke Baehr – “What’s Wrong With Our Food System”

Birke Baehr -”what’s Wrong With Our Food System? And How Can We Make A Difference?”

http://www.tedxnextgenerationasheville.com/

We hope you enjoyed. Let us know if you find great videos we can share in the future!

These are often used for advertising, but their usefulness is emerging on a broader scale. Foodtree has been using them to help food businesses tell their story, and  we think they’ll become increasingly important to businesses as they differentiate themselves through marketing, social media, and unique in-store experiences.  According to one study, QR code usage rose 1253% just last year.

So for the newbies to QR scanning, the first step is to download a scanning app. This means you’ll be prepared for every QR code that you come across in the future. Here are a few of our favorites, all of which are free.

Android QR Code Scanners

Favorite: RedLaser – Android

A pioneer in barcode/QR code scanning, this app was acquired by Ebay and remains a market leader.

Description: Impossibly accurate barcode scanning! Scan. Compare. Save. For Free!

Shop smarter. RedLaser Barcode Scanner searches for low online and local prices from hundreds of thousands of retailers. Features product results from Google, eBay, Milo, Shopping.com, and more!
Scan faster. Even without autofocus!

Good Option: Google Goggles

Description: Are you a Google fan? Goggles uses image recognition technology to recognize objects and return relevant search results. Scan QR codes using Goggles to extract information underneath the code.

iPhone QR Code Scanners

Favorite: RedLaser – iPhone

Over the last couple of months things have really started to accelerate here at Foodtree – food transparency is gaining momentum! A rapidly growing movement of farmers, grocers and restaurants want to share the story of their food with the world.

We aim is to throw the food web wide open and make information about the food on the table available to everyone. If that sounds like something you might want to be a part of, we’d like you to join us.

Join our Ambassador Program!

We need your help. Foodtree is opening up an Ambassador Program to support the rapidly growing pace of our projects – what we ultimately need is assistance from food lovers around the globe. You’ll be our eyes and ears in your community, with the opportunity to get involved with internal projects that impact our entire community at large.

The program is flexible and a great way to learn about how we (and startups like us) work. You’ll be gathering details about food and food businesses in your region, identifying core influencers and helping us drive adoption and awareness. We are looking for people who are outgoing and inquisitive about their food, and a basic level of technical / web proficiency would be ideal.

If you’d like to be involved email Gideon- gideon at foodtree.com.

Photo by TrafalgarsBistro on Foodtree.

Today we’re featuring Carrie Ferrence, Chief Planning and Development Officer of Stockbox Grocers.

Tell us about your project/business:
Stockbox Grocers is a miniature grocery that is tucked inside a reclaimed shipping container and placed into the parking lot of an existing business or organization. We innovate on the espresso stand model to get fresh produce and essential grocery staples into communities that do not currently have access to good food.

Has your relationship with food evolved over time? How?
Absolutely. My mother never made anything out of a box – everything was made from scratch and she was dedicated to preserving every last bit of a food through pickling or jarring. Despite this commitment to food, it took me years to really learn how to savor and celebrate food, not just for its ability to sustain, but for its capacity to build connections between people and with community. As a grocery owner, I get to celebrate the ability of food to build meaningful and emotional connections. Food can educate. Food can heal. And food can help communities to thrive.

What is your earliest memory about food?
We have so many food traditions in my family, that it is difficult to pinpoint the earliest memory. We always have chestnut filling at Christmas, chocolate peanut butter cake on birthdays, pickled tomatoes from the garden in summer, and pork and sauerkraut on New Year’s. Perhaps one of my fondest memories is one of the more simple dishes: venison sausage and potatoes in broth, after buck season.

What’s most important to you when it comes to buying food – local, organic, fair trade, GMO-free, etc?
I try to find a balance. I try to buy locally when possible. And, I have a few staples that I will only buy organic, like milk, eggs, and coffee. But, for the rest of my grocery cart, I really buy a mix of mainstream and organic. This is partly to balance out my household’s finances and partly because I often put a bigger focus on quality products. I know what products/brands that I like and I stick with them.

What is the one thing you’d like to see change about the food system?
As a small grocery owner, I’d love to see us move away from our dependence on the big box stores. We don’t need to shop in a 40,000 square foot store all the time. We don’t need to have 17 options for mustard. And, we don’t need to purchase everything in bulk. I’d love to see more opportunities to buy food inside the community.

What is special about food where you live? What’s one thing you would change?
I live in the Northwest, which means that I have a lot of access to fresh and foraged foods. We have such incredible wines, produce, seafood, and mushrooms. But, the lack of a good growing season in the summer does make it difficult to grow a variety of produce (including tomatoes!) in our own backyard.

What are your favorite ingredients to use when preparing a meal?
Olive oil, salt, and pepper. I once traveled Europe by bicycle for 4.5 months and probably prepared 75% of my meals with these three ingredients. I never got tired of it. If you have good food and fresh produce, than these three ingredients can simply help the food shine.

On a side note, I am a big believer in cream and whole milk. You just can’t bake or cook successfully with low-fat milk.

What are your favorite foods?
I was a vegetarian for more than a decade, but started eating meat a few years ago. Since my return to meat, I cannot get enough of salami and prosciutto. I also eat a ton of polenta, quinoa, eggs, and kale (it’s the one food that grows like hot cakes in my yard). In addition, I recently started making my own pasta, which is addicting.

Other than food, what are you particularly excited about right now?
One of my New Year’s resolutions is to learn how to sew and quilt. I have always been a big crafter, but have tended toward knitting and yarn. This will be a big step for me and I’m really excited to take on the challenge. I will be learning how to sew with my business partner, Jacqueline!

Tell us about a food-related project that has inspired you:
We are excited to be supporting Seattle Tilth as they build Seattle’s first food hub.

Where can people find you both online and offline?
Website: stockboxgrocers.com
Facebook: Stockbox Grocers
Twitter: @StockboxGrocers

Move over Angry Birds, make room 4 the @foodtree app; bringing mobile tech 2 the local food movement ow.ly/8PKeS

—
Slow Food USA (@SlowFoodUSA) February 02, 2012

The last two weeks have seen a lot of buzz around Foodtree! Thank you to all the people who spent time talking with us and learning about the progress we’ve made as well as our plans for the future. In addition, big thanks to everyone who’s been so generously sharing these pieces with their friends and followers.

Below is a bit of round up on some of recent Foodtree coverage, all of which brings a unique perspective to what we’re up to. Enjoy!

CBC Morning Edition interviews CEO Anthony (at about 39:40)

Click here to listen to Anthony chat with the Morning Edition

ShawTV’s Michael Popove interviews CEO Anthony

Social and mobile technologies boost local food movement - Burlington Free Press

Other social technologies Sugarsnap uses to do business are Twitter and Facebook, but Smart didn’t find true footing until he began working with Foodtree, he said.

“One of the nice things about Foodtree is that every time a user takes a photo related to food, they are able to post on Foodtree, as well as Twitter and Facebook,” he said. “We’re expecting to really leverage the richness of photos and accompanying stories to get more people engaged. We’re already seeing positive impacts.” – link

CKNW Morning News interviews CEO Anthony

Click here to listen to Anthony’s radio interview with Philip Till at CKNW

Scan here if you’re hungry - Vancouver Metro News

“The more people understand their food — where it’s from, who’s responsible for it and how it’s treated — the more power consumers have to make informed decisions,” Derek Shanahan said. “We are trying to change the idea that food is a commodity and to connect people who are eating the food with those producing the food.” – link

Grocery store in Vancouver will feature local produce and fully integrate Foodtree - Vancouver Courier

The business is meant to feature local producers and prepared salads, snacks and juices with seasonal menus and dine-in seating. Leung’s planning to keep Harvest open until 9 p.m. since most of the other area markets close by 6 p.m.

Foodtree, a company based in Chinatown that uses technology like QR codes that customers can use to learn more about growers, is working with Leung on promoting local producers. – link

Company helps fuel food knowledge - Vancouver Courier

“Oftentimes it is the people who are most closely producing food, farmers and fisherman, who maintain a connection to the planet in a way that most of us who live in cities do not,” he said.

Vancouver restaurants Nicli Antica Pizzeria, Bishop’s and Campagnolo have used smart-phone readable QR codes created by Foodtree linking menu items to farms that provide ingredients such as wild boar. – link

Want to see more?

We keep all of our press clippings over here. Feel free to poke through them for some perspective on what Foodtree is all about.

If you’d like to talk to us about a feature in your publication, please email Anthony directly at anthonyATfoodtreeDOTcom.

Today we want to highlight a few groups that are taking advantage of Foodtree Connection Maps. If you are a food business and would like to get your own map, claim your Foodtree profile here.

Burton’s Maplewood Farm (Indiana)

Burton’s award-winning infused maple syrups are used by not only the top restaurants in the Chicago area, but mixologists as well. They’ve used their map to reinforce their premium brand let customers know of the quality restaurants using their syrup, as well as where Chicago-area consumers can purchase the syrup to use at home. (And check out their website for some killer maple syrup cocktail recipes!)

Bellwether Farms Artisan Creamery (California)

Bellwether Farms makes delicious sheep and cow cheeses and yoghurt – the latter having saved this writer from consuming a processed “breakfast-wich” at the Minneapolis airport recently. We’re just getting started collecting all the specialty stores around North America that carry the Bellwether products. Are they in your area? Add a point to the map by photographing their product with our iPhone app.

Sugarsnap (Vermont)

Sugarsnap, a farm-to-table cafe and catering business in Vermont, is passionate about sourcing locally. They’ve recently claimed their profile and embedded a Foodtree map on their website to show visitors where their food comes from – without leaving their website. Sugarsnap founder Rob Smart (@jambutter) is loving it:

“Sugarsnap has been looking to kick up its web content and social media efforts for some time. We found a great tool to make that happen in Foodtree, which was a snap (pun intended) to set up and free! We’re seeing immediate benefits in telling our story to more people.”

UBC Farm (Vancouver)

UBC Farm supplies farmers markets, cafes and restaurants around the Vancouver area with fresh produce year-round, including the many on-campus cafés for University of British Columbia. As part of the UBC’s Center for Sustainable Food Systems, UBC Farm is a research and teaching facility – on top of the beautiful produce they grow.

Rocky Mountain Flatbread Co (Vancouver)

The mission of Rocky Mountain Flatbread Co is to make sure that the carbon footprint of every diner’s meal is zero. As new users of Foodtree, they’ve embraced our tools whole-heartedly! Not only is the map live (and coming soon to their website), but they have put QR codes on their menus and are using the iPhone app to upload photos of their award-winning dishes.

Want one for your own food business?

Tell your customers where your food is from, or where they can buy your products. Claim your profile and the map is activated straight away – what’s more, it’s free.

We thought we’d spend some time looking at the open projects related to food, and pick a few favorites that we thought you might enjoy knowing about or contributing to.

To be clear, we’re not affiliated with any of these projects and don’t know the people behind them.  We wish them and the other food efforts running Kickstarters right now the best of luck.

Healthy Fast-Food Revolution: The Beet Box

We are University of Michigan students launching a healthy food cart that will make transformative changes for you and your community – one healthy, delicious meal at a time!  By co-promoting with local health businesses and non-profits and “rewarding” customers for pursuing healthy lifestyles, The Beet Box not only provides healthful, nourishing and tantalizing food, it fosters what we have coined, “Strong-Health Empowerment.”

Kickstarter Page | Website

North Mountain Pastures

With the slaughter of livestock comes great responsibility – we believe their blood is on our hands and must be put to appropriate end use. To give homage to the lives and deaths of our animals, we want to express the utmost appreciation and gratitude for the gift of good meat. Beautiful Bacon.

We ask for money to help launch an on-farm, naturally raised and processed cured meat business –one of the first of this kind in the country. Help us create a food culture marked by quality and integrity.

Kickstarter Page | Website

The Urban Canopy ROOFTOP Farm!

Our vision is to show how rooftop farming is a vital part of the urban agriculture movement to create a sustainable and equitable food system. Join us by helping us grow fruits & vegetables, organically & sustainably on the roof. The rewards for your pledges include options to visit us for a tour, cool gear, fresh produce, and even come by to volunteer on the rooftop!

With a pilot farm on the rooftop of an ex-meatpacking factory, in the “Back of the Yards” neighborhood on the south side of Chicago, we used only 125 square feet to grow about 75 pounds of greens, chards, tomatoes, and peppers. Imagine what we can do next year with a 3000 square foot farm?! Please support this project as we take the next leap forward to change the way we grow and eat food.

Kickstarter Page | Website | Twitter

Bike·a·Bee

Bike·a·Bee began as tiny glimmer of an idea I had while beekeeping in Eugene, Oregon, during the summer of 2011. One of the most unexpected and enjoyable aspects of my experience there was becoming a part of the larger community. The beekeeper with whom I was working not only had a bee yard at his home, but he also had more than 13 others scattered throughout the city.

I took this sense of community with me back to Chicago upon my return last fall. I wanted to care for my own hives, but I didn’t have the yardspace I needed in the city. I searched for greenspaces around town in the same manner as my beekeeping friend in Oregon. As I spoke with urban spaces, farms, and gardens, the feedback was quite encouraging. Meanwhile, I figured out a bike trailer system so that I could care for the bees and ride from hive-to-hive in the most eco-friendly fashion. I’m a year-round cyclist and can’t stomach the idea of owning (and paying for) a car. So with that, Bike·a·Bee was born!

Kickstarter Page | Website

Global Village Fruits

When I found out that the delicious dried jackfruit I tasted in Kerala, India, isn’t available in the U.S. (gasp!), a dream was born. Global Village Fruits is a socially responsible company to bring the world’s best fruits to the palm of your hand—starting with India’s jackfruit.

Kickstarter Page

There’s More…

If you’d like to browse the rest of the food related Kickstarter projects, click here.