Breeanna Whitehead: Building Food Sovereignty and Community Trust

Breeanna Whitehead’s work sits at the intersection of food security, community investment, and values-driven leadership. As Director of Capital Strategy at Wheatsville Co-op in Austin, Texas, she is helping raise $10 million to sustain and expand a large, community-owned co-op. Wheatsville reinvests profits into local initiatives, including more than $200,000 last year to twelve community action partners. For Breeanna, this model demonstrates how communities can take ownership of their food systems while creating lasting impact.

When Breeanna joined our conversation, she wore a shirt that read “Treat people with kindness.” It was fitting, and her story reflects that philosophy. She was born in San Diego and moved often as a child, following her father’s work as a nuclear engineer after his service in the Navy. She attended sixteen different schools before graduating high school at age sixteen. She now calls Austin, Texas home.

For Breeanna, Wheatsville has been a launchpad for innovative and culturally meaningful foods, and a place where people feel a sense of belonging. “I have never walked into Wheatsville and felt bad vibes,” she said. “It is always endearing and connective.” She sees co-ops as essential to food security because they are owned by the community and not by corporations, with profits cycling back into local needs. She also cited how co-ops give alternative CPG brands a chance to prove themselves early, including a grain-free Latin foods company that first started on Wheatsville’s shelves before growing significantly.

Her second major project is Feed Uvalde, an initiative aimed at creating food sovereignty for the 5,206 households in Uvalde, Texas. The community is often among the first to feel the effects of supply chain disruptions. Breeanna wants to design a model that makes access to food reliable, resilient, and locally controlled, in a city that is about 80% Latino. She hopes to launch the program in the next one to two years.

“I am not an Avenger,” she explained. “But I am someone who can impact change in the sphere that I am in.” She rejects extractive relationships in business and investing, a mindset she connects to hustle culture and unsustainable practices. Instead, she advocates for reciprocity and for building systems that pour back into communities. “I am not interested in extractive relationships in general, in any version of my business or my personal life. I want fulfilling, connected relationships.”

Her perspective is hopeful. She points to simple, restorative practices—like half-moon earthworks, sometimes called ‘earth smiles,’ used along the Sahel that retain scarce rainfall and help trees return—as proof that small, intentional efforts can scale into transformative impact. She also speaks on artificial intelligence, emphasizing its positive potential when guided thoughtfully: “AI can restore your humanity if you let it.”

Breeanna’s personal and professional experiences come together to show that kindness is present in food systems, in community action, and in how we choose to spend our resources. Kindness is an investment we can all make.

“Put your money where your values are.”

Breeanna Whitehead is a strategist and community leader dedicated to building food sovereignty and cooperative impact. Her story demonstrates that when kindness is invested intentionally, it creates both resilience and abundance. Keep an eye out for more interviews.