Founded by the late Jerome James Peloquin, a former U.S. Marine and consultant on urban food production, Urban SEA is a Baltimore company developing aquaponics facilities for cities. Its model pairs year-round local food production with community employment and training through partnerships with municipalities.
Groundwork Market GardenGroundwork Market Garden is a two-acre USDA Certified Organic urban farm on Buffalo’s East Side, growing food in the city since 2015. Co-founders and co-owners Mayda Pozantides and Anders Gunnersen built the farm from vacant lots into a working operation with a farm stand, CSA and wholesale customers. Groundwork pairs intensive, soil-focused farming with community food-access work, including Solidarity Shares and its collaboration with nonprofit Fare Share WNY.BUFFALO, NY
ECO City FarmsECO City Farms is a nonprofit urban teaching and learning farm in Prince George’s County that grows organically produced food while training the next generation of urban farmers. Its farms turn food-scarce neighborhoods into productive community spaces, including a 1.5-acre Edmonston farm and a 3.5-acre Bladensburg site built on former apartment grounds. Alongside affordable produce sales, ECO runs hands-on farmer training, youth education, composting and an incubator for emerging farm businesses.EDMONSTON, MD
Phillips Foods, IncFrom its Chesapeake Bay beginnings, Phillips Foods makes crab meat, crab cakes and other prepared seafood for grocery shelves, restaurants and foodservice kitchens. The family-owned company traces its roots to 1914 and has crafted seafood products for four generations, carrying the Maryland Eastern Shore tradition behind its first restaurant’s 1956 crab-cake recipe into a global sourcing operation. Based in Baltimore, Phillips also operates seafood restaurants along the East Coast and in airports.BALTIMORE, MD
BlackSea TechnologiesFounded by former U.S. Navy SEALs and special operations professionals, Baltimore-based BlackSea Technologies builds unmanned maritime systems and provides the operational support to deploy and sustain them. Its GARC surface vessel is already in production at the former Bethlehem-Fairfield Shipyard, where the company says a completed unit currently leaves the line each day. BlackSea pairs that manufacturing work with mission systems such as Mainstay, its open autonomy architecture, and maritime logistics for contested and austere environments.CURTIS BAY, MD