Lilly Jan was perplexed, and a little annoyed.

An assistant teaching professor in the Cornell Nolan School of Hotel Administration, in the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business, Jan last year was trying to collect information on food industry businesses owned by Black women.

“There was information on Black-owned businesses; there was information on women-owned businesses,” Jan said. “But there wasn’t a lot of research on Black women and how they’re doing in that space.

“I’ve always found that what you choose to count reflects what you care about,” she said. “That there wasn’t information about this really bothered me.”

Credit: Adedayo Kosoko, The Art Hype/Provided

So Jan and a then-Nolan School undergraduate, Emma Roder ’26, did something about it. The result: “Black Women in Food Industry Report: Entrepreneurship Across the Food Landscape,” which found that structural inequities – such as lack of access to capital investment and peer-centered mentorship – play an outsize role in their entrepreneurial journeys. The overwhelming majority of respondents reported annual revenue of less than $25,000, and most operate as microenterprises; a 2026 Wells Fargo report found that overall, women represent 39.2% of all businesses, but just 6.2% of revenue.

Jan and Roder also found that for many Black women in the food sector, it’s about more than just the food.

“So many of these businesses are rooted in community and larger meaning,” Jan said. “It wasn’t simply about building a business. It was also about engaging with a community or a culture, supporting legacy. They were not rooted in just financial gain, but also social and cultural gain.”

The 200 study participants came from Black Women in Food programs, including its third annual summit, held in Washington, D.C., in April 2025. Oduro and Maame Boakye, the organization’s other co-founder, collaborated with Jan and Roder on the report.

“The collaboration to get this data was essential,” said Nina Oduro, co-founder of Black Women in Food, an organization that supports the advancement of Black women professionals across food, beverage, and hospitality careers. “For years, we’ve obtained anecdotal stories about the barriers Black women face in the food industry, but it was time to move beyond that. This report demonstrates that the stories are not isolated experiences. They reveal broader patterns that require systemic solutions.”

Study participants all completed a survey developed by Jan and Roder, which sought information on business size, financing and access to capital, educational background and their ability to access peer mentors.

The researchers identified a few key insights, including:

• Black women are actively building food businesses, but most remain very small. More than half of the respondents reported running their business alone;
• Most businesses are financed personally rather than through formal capital systems. Personal savings was far and away the most common funding source, with traditional lending and investment capital the exception. Funding via savings limits these businesses’ ability to scale up;
• Founders are highly educated but often operate without strong professional infrastructure. Most respondents reported bachelor’s or graduate degrees, but also limited or no access to robust professional networks or mentorship systems; and
• The ecosystem supporting Black women food entrepreneurs is underdeveloped. The data revealed that while entrepreneurial activity is strong, the surrounding support systems – especially access to capital and mentors – are uneven, hindering these businesses’ growth.

Another recurring theme among the respondents, Jan said, was a perceived lack of visibility. That came into sharp focus when Jan and Roder attended this year’s Black Women in Food Summit, also in Washington, D.C., and presented some of their findings.

“So many of the women were very emotional in response, saying, ‘I finally feel like someone’s paying attention,’” Jan said.

She also noted that many of the responses to their survey in 2025 contained more than just data.

“So many women shared messages like, ‘You’ve got this,’” she said. “That was a really neat aspect of this. Even in an anonymous online survey, they were trying to give and support community.”

Oduro called the report “an important step toward ensuring data informs the decisions, investments and systemic changes needed to drive progress” for Black women in the industry.

“Prioritizing research,” she said, “will enable our work to advance meaningful solutions for the barriers that have been uncovered.”

Jan said she’s in the process of writing a formal research paper on this subject.