#WCW: Up Close with Miami’s Seed Food & Wine Festival Founder Alison Burgos

For many, going vegan is a difficult commitment to make. After all, it requires eliminating major food groups and following a mostly plant-based diet. For Alison Burgos, however, the change was simple, and it was a change for a better life.

After being diagnosed with an autoimmune disease, the part-Puerto Rican, part-Spanish entrepreneur knew that her diet was affecting her overall lifestyle and well-being. Fast forward to today, where Burgos is co-founder and producer of one of Miami’s hottest vegan events – SEED Food & Wine Festival. The festival, held in early November, focuses on creating a conversation, a space, and a movement around plant-based foods, vegan living and the welfare of animals. The stellar SEED created the event from the ground up in hopes that people will be inspired as Burgos was.

We chatted with the food event producer about going vegan, starting a food movement, and more. Read it all ahead to learn why she’s this week’s #WomanCrushWednesday!

Tell us about the health issues that motivated you to follow along a healthy journey.

In 2008, I was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis, an autoimmune disease. I was confined to a wheelchair for about a year before undergoing knee replacement surgery, followed by six months of physical rehabilitation, all in order to be able to walk again.

My wife Michelle already lived a plant-based lifestyle, but the experience made both of us delve into a more conscious, healthy way of life. The changes I made allowed me to ween myself from a lot of my medication, lose more weight than I ever had, feel more energetic and bring my inflammation levels down to remission level. [pagebreak]

What about the Miami food scene made you pick it as the destination for Seed?

Miami is a vibrant city that is truly unique in the world. That contributes to making SEED the premiere plant-based festival in the United States. We have much less of a trade show, granola-like feel and steer more towards the fun, celebratory end. In a nutshell, this fest is about celebrating life and there are few places in the world that do celebration better than Miami. We add that layer of sustainable living to it and we have a completely untraditional, first-class festival.

Prior to starting Seed, what was your involvement with food?

I was more involved in the events world than the food world. I have produced destination weekends and events in Las Vegas, Orlando, Miami, Atlanta, Charlotte, and Puerto Rico since 1998. Michelle also has experience with events as a longtime entrepreneur and philanthropist.

How did you first become interested in creating SEED?

SEED Food and Wine was inspired by my health condition, which significantly affected our lives. Realizing the drastic and positive results of my lifestyle changes, Michelle and I saw the opportunity for not just a festival, but really a movement.

Miami’s food scene is burgeoning and within that context, we felt the time was right to create an event aimed at everyone, not just vegans. People told us not to do it here. They said it would work better in L.A., but Miami is our home and we felt like this was the perfect place to start SEED back 2014. 

What made you, and the other founders, want to focus on plant-based food?

Overall we’ve made a change in our lives toward more mindful, sustainable living. However, we wanted to show people that conscious living can be cool, accessible and delicious. It’s an essential part of our mission to appeal to all and to not just preach to the choir. [pagebreak]

Do you eat only plant-based, and if so, do you find it difficult resisting classic Latino dishes you grew up on?

Growing up eating Spanish and Puerto Rican dishes, I definitely miss Latin food like the typical arroz con pollo sometimes. I work every day at making healthy, plant based choices, but I’m not always perfect.

I do make a mean “arroz con no pollo.” I take the same recipe I enjoyed when I was younger, but I make it vegan, using mushrooms or artichoke hearts with vegetable stock, wine, onions, saffron and capers. It’s delicious!

Tell us about a couple of the speakers who will be attending the event this year.

Marco Borges, the best-selling author of The 22-Day Revolution and The 22-Day Revolution Cookbook and the trainer for Beyoncé and Jay-Z, will be at various events at SEED, including the speaker stage at our Festival Day and SEED Summit, a multi-day workshop event aimed bloggers, influencers and other content creators.

Giselle Schreiner, who is also known as La Vida Organica, is a Venezuelan American health coach focused on nutrition, healthy traveling, love and life. She’ll be participating in our SEED Summit. She has studied at the Center for Integrative Nutrition in New York. She also is certified as a Living Foods Chef. She follows the philosophy that “the foundation for better quality of life resides in self- love and a good combination of natural foods and products.”

What do you think the future holds for vegan, vegetarian and plant-based food?

When you have chefs like Jose Andrés saying that veggies are the new bacon and other chefs like Jean-Georges Vongerichten opening a vegetarian restaurant, we know this isn’t a trend. It’s really a movement. A local example: Alter, a Wynwood restaurant recognized as one of the best new restaurants in the country by many, often includes a couple of plant-based dishes in its tasting menu (and not just as an alternative choice), and I expect to see that movement grow.

Through SEED, we hope to spearhead a movement for change towards healthier and more sustainable living in this country. Our festival is designed to be inclusive and fun, so that will expand the audience that has access to information about sustainability. And it seems to be working already – we’re expecting 9000 attendees this year, but we want to keep growing!