When we started Civil Eats in 2009, we saw a need to create a trusted community supported blog about food politics, from policy being made on Capitol Hill to new projects seeking to change our food system sprouting up on Main Street and everything in between. Since then, we’ve had 2.5 million pageviews, with clicks coming from decision makers in Washington, D.C. and ordinary citizens across the nation. We are proud to have featured the work of over 200 contributors. We hope to continue to grow our readership and find new ways to inform and provide resources to everyone interested in food politics. Today, we share with you the new vision of Civil Eats (in beta, of course, while we iron out the wrinkles). 

As a reminder to our ever loyal readers and to our new followers: Civil Eats is a complete labor of love. None of our editors, writers or contributors are paid for their work. We have provided this platform entirely free of charge for nearly four years. In the coming year, we will be presenting some new funding/donation options for our readership to help us to make Civil Eats sustainable. In the meantime, with a few donations we’ve received over the years, we have been able to hire the excellent Southbend designer Jeff Fassnacht, who has helped us create a newly dynamic and compelling site. We have undertaken this revamp because we know how important visual storytelling is to a web audience and we’re excited to share some of our new features with you.

One of the main features of our new site is our Topic Pages–which provide a primer on the myriad subjects we strive to cover, from antibiotics to urban agriculture, and which also give readers a quick reference to pieces we’ve published on these subjects to date.

Another new feature is our Resource Page–a curated list of the many other great sites and organizations where you can learn more about the subjects we cover.

You will also notice three of our featured columns in the top left sidebar: Faces & Visions, a series of interviews conducted by Editor Jen Dalton, heralding heroes who are working for change in the food system; Local Eats, a series highlighting the good work that communities are undertaking to create a healthy and just food system, edited by Deputy Editor Adrien Schless-Meier; and our Young Farmers series, featuring stories that educate, empower and highlight the work of beginning farmers.

In addition, we have created a more prominent platform for our writers–each now has a contributor page featuring their work for the site.