One Spark's Culinary Creators

Jacksonville hosts One Spark crowd-funding festival April 9-13

Among the hundreds of projects that will vie for votes and donations at this year's One Spark festival in downtown Jacksonville, Florida, 28 of them are food-related.

Some seek operating cash to improve or expand on existing businesses, and many are looking for ways to improve the lives of First Coast residents, feeding the hungry, providing training in food-service, sustainable gardening, packaging and distribution of food. Here are three we're excited about.

Gastrofest 2015 aims show the world what the Jacksonville culinary scene has to offer with a festival featuring “everything from fine dining to food trucks, from microbreweries to local cookbooks, from vegans to local beef.” Their One Spark booth will feature many local culinary businesses  and fellow One Spark creators sampling their creations and demonstrating their skills - here's the schedule.

Find Gastrofest creators Erin Thursby, Kamron Perry and Nathaniel Price  at Main Street Park during One Spark, and on the web at www.gastrofest.com.

Follow them on facebook and twitter. Vote #20026

Mark Patterson created a niche in the frozen dessert market by crafting a great tasting, protien rich healthier alternative to traditional ice-cream. Now he's courting funding at One Spark, to expand his Jacksonville-based line of Naturally Smart Frozen Desserts, currently available in chocolate and vanilla flavors at Grassroots, Whole Foods, BioMax and other natural food retailers. 

He seeks funding to develop three new flavors — coffee, coconut and green tea. 

Mark spent years working in local restaurants before he decided to develop Naturally Smart. He's doing everything right, and keeping much of the production and marketing of his product local. Grab a sample of this cool treat at Chamblin's Uptown during One Spark. #20007


Conscious Market wants to develop a system to efficiently collect and redistribute excess food from small businesses.  An outreach of the nonprofit Character Counts!, it is developing a line of food products and a mobile application to facilitate the tracking of perishable and non-perishable goods. Learn more on Facebook. 

Conscious Market creator and spiritual force of nature Florence Haridan and the crew will be sampling their wares during One Spark at Workscapes Jax. #20538

See you at One Spark!