We began the year by shifting to more robust news coverage with the launch of our Food Policy Tracker, allowing us to provide a format for exclusives, to break news—sometimes ahead of mainstream media—and quickly hold powerful politicians and corporations to account for their actions.

We expanded our staff, too, hiring a second full-time Washington, D.C.-based reporter, Rebekah Alvey, to join Senior Staff Reporter and Contributing Editor Lisa Held in reporting on the ground from the nation’s capitol. Susan Desmond and Brian Calvert came on board as well: Desmond is our first development director, and Calvert, previously a freelance editor, became a staff senior editor.

With our paywall down since September 2024, our overall traffic has soared, we’ve gained new readers and members, and are now bringing our vital reporting to more people than ever.

We launched our latest Crash Course on civics and the food system, intended to give readers clear, concise information during a time of distortions and misinformation. We’ve also worked hard to engage more deeply with our supporters through salons, a new book club, and online and in-person meetups.

While keeping a close eye on developments in D.C., we remain committed to bringing readers inspiring, deeply reported, solutions-oriented stories about mutual aid, climate change, farming, social justice, and much more, while pursuing investigative pieces on corporate power and many other topics.

We’re thrilled that this work has resonated with you and our peers in the journalism industry. Civil Eats received more than a dozen journalism awards in 2025. Here are a just a few:

For the third year in a row, Civil Eats was named a finalist for General Excellence in Online Journalism (micro newsroom) by the Online News Association’s 2025 Online Journalism Awards (OJA), the global prizes that honor excellence in digital journalism.

Held was named a semifinalist for the 2025 Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting from the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School. This is a huge honor that recognizes Held’s dogged reporting for Chemical Capture, her multipart investigative series documenting the power and influence of the pesticide industry.

This series had an immediate impact. Days after we published the first story, about Bayer’s state-level efforts to pass laws shielding itself from liability for harms caused by its popular herbicide, Roundup, a group of U.S. senators sent a letter to their leadership opposing “all efforts to preempt state and local authority to regulate pesticides.”

Chemical Capture also received an honorable mention in the Investigative category of the 2024 Best in Business Awards from the Society for Advancing Business Editing and Writing (SABEW)—the first time Civil Eats has been recognized by the organization.

SABEW also gave an honorable mention in the feature category to Pulitzer Center Ocean Reporting Fellow Alexandra Talty for her story “The Hard Work of Bringing Kelp to Market.” The article was included in “Kelp’s Tangled Lines,” our four-part series about kelp as a valuable regenerative crop for both U.S. coasts.

Former Staff Reporter Grey Moran won a James Beard Foundation Media Award for excellence in Health and Wellness reporting for their story about the Fair Food Program, a grassroots effort to implement heat protections for Florida farmworkers. Civil Eats was also nominated for a James Beard Foundation Media Award for excellence in Columns and Newsletters for The Deep Dish, our members-only newsletter.

And “The Land Back Movement Is Also About Foodways,” by Contributor Kate Nelson, was included in The Best American Food and Travel Writing 2025, guest-edited by chef, author, and food activist Bryant Terry.

We have so much more in store for you for 2026, so stay tuned. From all of us at Civil Eats, we thank you for being part of our success. Please join us and consider donating, becoming a member, or giving a gift membership today. We couldn’t do this work without your support.

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Source: civileats.com