Liz Abunaw is the founder and operator of Forty Acres Fresh Market, an affordable grocery startup launched in 2018 to address the lack of fresh food options on Chicago's west side. Forty Acres' impact on the area has garnered investment from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, the USDA Healthy Food Financing Initiative, the American Heart Association Social Impact Fund, and other funders. Prior to launching her business, Liz worked for Microsoft and General Mills. The native New Yorker and Cornell University graduate moved to Chicago in 2012 when awarded a full-tuition fellowship to the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, from which she graduated in 2014. She holds the staunch position that while Chicago deep dish is delicious, it is not pizza. It is a casserole. Pizza folds.

CREATOR PROFILE

Liz Abunaw

Founder / Business Owner / Food Justice Advocate

Based in Chicago, Liz built her grocery startup to solve a problem she could see in her own city—the lack of accessible, fresh food in underserved West Side neighborhoods. The business draws on her background in corporate strategy and her MBA, but it is driven by something more personal: a conviction that food access is a justice issue, not merely a logistics problem. She writes about entrepreneurship from that standpoint—informed by finance and business school, but measured against real-world outcomes in communities that have been systematically underserved.

Chicago, IL

Founder

Writer

Entrepreneur

Experience

Creator Portfolio

EXPERIENCE WITH PROPS

A Chicago-based founder whose editorial work sits at the intersection of entrepreneurship, food justice, and operational business. Liz writes from experience as a founder who navigated the financing, growth, and daily operations of a grocery startup—producing content that is analytically rigorous and socially grounded, for audiences in the food, business, and impact investing spaces.

Subject Matter

Entrepreneurship, food justice, and business leadership. Liz's published work draws on years of building and operating a food access startup—covering the financing decisions, management challenges, and strategic choices that face any founder, through the lens of a business with a clear social mission.

Business

Food Justice

Entrepreneurship

Content Formats

Long-form editorial with a business and analytical register. Liz writes with the precision of a former corporate strategist and the candor of a founder who has navigated both institutional funding and day-to-day operations. Her work is practical and evidence-based, suitable for general business audiences and readers in the food and impact sectors.

Visual Portfolio

Get to know

Liz Abunaw

A founder and business strategist, Liz writes from real operational experience. Her editorial work translates the financing decisions, management challenges, and strategic choices of building a startup into broadly applicable lessons—drawing on both a corporate background and the ground-level reality of building a food access business from scratch in an underserved community.

Sample Work

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Published

Published with Props

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