Iowa Culinary Conference: June 2026

Chef Sean Sherman has dedicated his career to supporting and promoting Indigenous food systems and Native food sovereignty.

Sean’s cooking style is based on pre colonial Indigenous food systems, using only ingredients that are native to North America. His menus are inspired by the seasons and the land, featuring traditional ingredients like bison, hand-harvested wild rice, cedar, and sumac. He draws on the knowledge and culinary techniques of his ancestors to develop innovative, nutritious, and flavorful dishes that incorporate wild game, fish, foraged plants, and heirloom grains. Through his activism and advocacy, Sean is helping to reclaim and celebrate the rich culinary heritage of Indigenous communities around the world.

Chef Dan Giusti served as Executive Chef of 1789 in Washington, D.C. and Head Chef of Noma in Copenhagen, Denmark. In 2016, he founded Brigaid, guided by the belief that everyone deserves real, wholesome food, cooked with care and passion.

For him, one of the biggest misconceptions about institutional kitchens is regarding the people who work within them. There is this stereotype that maybe they don't really care about the food they are preparing or the people they are serving, but they really do care. In most cases, they just haven't been set up for success to do the job they've been asked to do.

Chef Hari Pulapaka is a full time, tenured Associate Professor of Mathematics at Stetson University (DeLand, FL), co founder of Cress Restaurant. In 2017, Hari launched a company Global Cooking School, LLC with a mission: to offer a wide swathe of educational and consulting services aimed at making food more delicious, thoughtful, nutritious and inclusive. The Global Cooking School published Hari's 2nd book. Born and raised in Mumbai, Hari has been in the United States since 1987. After completing a PhD in Mathematics at the University of Florida in 1995, a professional midlife crisis led to fast paced, top of the class graduation with an Associate of Applied Science in the Culinary Arts from Le Cordon Bleu Orlando in 2004.

Josh Mathiasmeier joined the Chef Ann Foundation team in September 2023 and serves as the organization’s Senior Operations Specialist. In this role, he supports school districts and partners in meeting their strategic plan goals to increase scratch cooking in their schools.

Patrick Garmong is associate director for culinary education and training at the Institute of Child Nutrition. Patrick has been in the foodservice industry for over 15 years. He is a graduate of the Institute of Culinary Education (Manhattan NY). Previously, Patrick was child nutrition director for the Ellensburg School District. Patrick has also been executive chef in various fields of the hospitality industry, including higher education, restaurants, and catering.

After Chef Robert Lewis graduated from the prestigious Culinary Institute of America in 1976, he continued to expand on his love for food and cooking, taking jobs with different hotels and restaurants and even trying his hand at his own restaurants.

In 1995 he was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes. Much of what he heard in those early days was about the foods that were prohibited. He suspected that his days of good eating were over; yet as he worked through his ups and downs, he came to realize that the selection of foods he could and should eat was vast and included many of his favorites.

Bertrand Weber is director of culinary and wellness services for Minneapolis Public Schools in Minnesota. Bertrand’s career spans more than 35 years of combined management experience in the hospitality industry and school food service. Trained in hotel management in Switzerland, Bertrand has managed some of the finest hotels and resorts on the east coast. His compassion for the well being and future of our children and our environment led Bertrand to the Hopkins School District in Minnesota in 2003.

From 2006 until 2011, Bertrand worked for Taher, Inc. as director of wellness, nutrition and culinary standards and was responsible for the implementation of the Food for Life initiative.

As director for Minneapolis Public Schools’ Culinary and Wellness Services since January 2012, Bertrand wasted no time rethinking MPS’s school lunch program.

Salad bars have been introduced in 63 schools, all 7 high schools, and 5 junior high schools; and 24 elementary schools have returned to scratch cooking with 5 more scheduled for the 2017 2018 school year. MPS is on the leading edge of the farm to school movement and introduced “MN Thursday” during the 14 15 school year.

• Monday, June 22, 2026 8:30am-4pm at the Hyatt Regency in Coralville, Iowa 

• Tuesday, June 23, 2026 8:30am-4:30pm with Dinner and Keynote 5:00-7:00pm at the Hyatt Regency in Coralville 

• Tuesday will include hands-on training at Kirkwood Community College’s state-of-the-art culinary labs at Hotel at Kirkwood in Cedar Rapids. 

• Full schedule coming soon! 

• Registration for the full two day Iowa Culinary Conference is $200 or one day for $150. 

• Register for the Iowa Culinary Conference with SNAI. Register for just one or both conferences. Options for registration are available 

• Please fill out this google form if you are interested in a possible stipend to attend the Iowa Culinary Conference. We will follow up in March with more details on potential stipend opportunities.

Our Partnerships for Local Agriculture and Nutrition Transformation in Schools (PLANTS) Grant program is focused on providing technical assistance to school nutrition directors and farmers to continue fostering relationships within the food system across the state.

The goal for the program is to grow culinary training in scratch cooking and to increase the amount of healthy, nutritious and locally grown products in Iowa school cafeterias while supporting value chain relationships.

Read More about the Project