Have you ever asked someone you just met what they do for a living, only to forget their answer the moment it leaves their mouth? You are not alone. It can take time - and more than one question - to understand exactly what a job involves, and that's essentially what Chris is doing with his company, Food-X. Over intensive three-month sessions, Chris and his partners mentor food businesses from the ground up, taking an in-depth look at what entrepreneurs are doing, or what they want to be doing. If you want to know more, you came to the right place.

When did you know that you wanted to work in food?

I've been passionate about food my whole life; I learned to cook from my grandmother, who taught me about the glories of traditional Southern American food. I continued to learn about food and cooking, mostly by self-study and travel, for many years. Things really changed for me though on the first day of classes at the University of Gastronomic Sciences in Colorno, Italy. My passion for food was quickly expanded to include "good food" (I think we all know what that means), and the year of study there really made a big impact on me. And I don't just mean my weight!  Thereafter I spent time working as a butcher at Tenuta di Spannocchia outside of Siena, Italy, and seeing traditional, sustainable agriculture in that form was heartening and enlightening.

How did you get your current good food job?

Food-X is a new food business accelerator; we have just built it. Shen Tong, my business partner, and I have known each other for a long time and thought this was a perfect opportunity to work together. The idea of applying the accelerator model to food businesses just made a lot of sense to us. All of the great innovators in the food space out there need help, a leg up so to speak, to be able to compete. Food market areas of all types are often dominated by incumbent companies, are highly fragmented and needing cohesion or clear leaders, or are simply ripe for innovation. We provide intensive business skills coaching, mentoring by amazing business leaders and celebrities, and funding. In addition we provide access to our extensive network of other entrepreneurs and investors. All of this support allows the new business founders to really focus their energy and leverage those resources on building a viable entity.

We had almost 200 applicants to our first program, which is slated to start September 2014. They are food companies and founders of all types, and the process of meeting them and hearing out their ideas has been an amazing experience. We will only select 10 companies for our first program - a difficult task when faced with so much talent. Because of this we expect to run more accelerators and with greater frequency in the near future. We have also seen the application process itself begin to develop a community amongst the entrepreneurs, a bonus we hadn't expected but really love.

How did your previous work or life experience prepare you for a good food job?

I like to say that I escaped from corporate America when I embarked on my serious food studies and ventures, but truth be told, my experience there has helped me tremendously in this job as well. Of course having lived in rural Tuscany for some time, and working as a butcher, doesn't logically lead to running a business accelerator in New York City, but that didn't hurt either. Every opportunity provides some sort of experience that helps in this current venture.

What was the greatest obstacle you had to overcome in pursuing your Good Food Job dream?

This is all still pretty new, and our success depends on how things play out over the next few months, but I'm confident that we will be able to succeed and help some great companies make an impact on the food world.

What can you identify as the greatest opportunities in food right now?

I believe that change in so many areas is really critical. We are still experiencing terrible hunger issues worldwide and within our own country, and that's simply not right. Our reliance on industrial food production is risky at best, and does terrible things to our diet and our environment. Ethical treatment of animals and land stewardship have been long ignored. I can go on and on, but we really need to shake things up and I believe there's room to do that in many areas. On a micro-level, I've seen great things recently like a Food Hackathon here in New York where a group of hackers/programmers/designers took a weekend to come up with solutions to practical problems faced by the sponsors of the event, including Chipotle, Google, Applegate, and B&B Group. That was pretty cool. But I think the area that Food-X is working in is unique and very important - helping new companies with ideas that can really make a change in the food world to succeed.

If you could be compensated for your work with something other than money, what would it be?

My work at Tenuta di Spannocchia in Italy provided room and board as compensation, and it was amazing. Imagine a 1000 year old estate with a view of an unspoiled valley in Tuscany, some of the best salumi on the planet (and some of it made by yours truly), our own wine, olive oil, and pure spring water, vegetables and fruits from all round us. Yeah. That pretty much beats money.