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Visit just about any downtown on a weekend and you will likely happen upon a farmers market. Or, you might grab lunch from a food truck outside a local brewpub or winery. Very likely, there is a community-shared kitchen or food entrepreneur incubator initiative behind the scenes to support this growing foodie ecosystem. As rural America gains younger residents, and grows more diverse and increasingly digitally connected, these dynamics are driving a renaissance in craft foods. One food entrepreneur incubator, Hope & Main Kitchen, operates out of a school that sat vacant for over 10 years in the small Rhode Island town of Warren. Its business incubation program, with over 300 graduates to date, gives food and beverage entrepreneurs a way to test, scale and develop their products before investing in their own facilities. Its markets also give entrepreneurs a place to test their products on the public and buyers for stores, while providing the community with local goods. Food has been central to culture, community and social connections for millennia. But food channels, social media food influencers and craft brews have paved the way for a renaissance of regional beverage and food industry startups across America. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Hope & Main: Culinary Incubator (@hopemain) In my work in agriculture economics, I see connections between this boom in food and agriculture innovation and the inflow of young residents who are helping revitalize rural America and reinvigorate its Main Streets. Why entrepreneurs are embracing rural life An analysis of 2023 U.S. Census Bureau data found that more people have been moving to small towns and rural counties in recent years, and that the bulk of that population growth is driven by 25- to 44-year-olds. This represents a stark contrast to the 2000s, when 90% of the growth for younger demographics was concentrated in the largest metro areas. !function(){"use strict";window.addEventListener("message",(function(a){if(void 0!==a.data["datawrapper-height"]){var e=document.querySelectorAll("iframe");for(var t in a.data["datawrapper-height"])for(var r=0;r
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It was a fun moment to be online. When the news broke on May 8 that Pope Franciss successor would be the first-ever American to hold the sacred positionand a Chicagoan, no lesssocial media erupted with celebration and Windy City-specific memes. Within days, some of those memes had morphed into t-shirts for sale. As the conversation around Pope Leo XIV quickly spread to his environmentalist leanings and political opinions, though, the wellspring of unauthorized merchandise spread far beyond novelty shirts that read Da Pope. What has flourished in the days since is a broader pope economy that spans clothing, memorabilia, food, tourism, and moreboth in the U.S. and in Rome. Demand in both places appears largely driven by Americans. Stateside fervor for pope merchandise is not without precedent, of course. A pontifical cottage industry sprang up around Pope Franciss 2015 visit to Philadelphia, for instance. Along with t-shirts commemorating the event, Philly streets were flooded with plush pope dolls, life-sized cardboard cutouts, and other pope swag. There was even pope cheese, a mozzarella ball shaped like the bishop of Rome. Considering this level of entrepreneurial excitement marked the occasion of a sitting pope merely visiting the U.S., its no wonder so many people have found creative ways to capitalize on an American ascending to the papacy. No business like pope business The scope of the pope-based merch empire is already vast. It has a devotional side, with various faith-based online retailers lining up to sell prayer cards, framed portraits, and an insta-book called When the White Smoke Clears: A Guide to Pope Leo XIV’s Early Days, which currently has a June 30 release date. Topps offered a limited-release Pope Leo-themed trading card for four days in May, and reportedly sold 133,535 units at $8.99 a pop. (Though the cards are part of a special Topps collection marking significant moments in sports and culture, Pope trading cards date back to the early 1900s.) The Pope Leo cards are now being listed at up to $199 on eBay. For those who would like something a little more three-dimensional, the National Bobblehead Hall of Fame and Museum recently put on presale two separate iterations of Pope Leo for $30 each. Theres also piping hot content on the way: Castletown Medias forthcoming documentary, Pope Leo XVI: A Pontiffs Path, which is expected to reside on an upcoming faith-based streaming service called CREDO. Perhaps some of the many viewers who made 2025 Oscar nominee Conclave a massive hit on streaming during Pope Leos election will be among the first to tune in. Unsurprisingly, Chicago has become the white-hot epicenter for stateside Popemania. The merch frenzy includes custom White Sox jerseys, in the wake of Pope Leos brother dispelling rumors of Cubs fandom and archival video footage confirming his Sox bona fides. The Chicago sports shop Grandstand claimed to Sports Illustrated that their Sox jerseys with the Popes name on it are outselling those of any other player on the team. The Soxs home, Rate Field, took the teams papal love public, installing a mural of him at the stadium. Beloved Chi-town restaurant chain Portillos also named a new sandwich The Leo, which it describes as divinely seasoned Italian Beef, baptized in gravy. Meanwhile, in Evanston, Bennisons Bakery is offering limited edition cookies that bear Pope Leos likeness. Chicago may eventually become an even bigger tourist destination for the faithful. The owner of Pope Leos now-decrepit childhood churchSt. Mary of the Assumption, on Chicagos south sideis reportedly in talks to convert the space into a place of worship for local congregations, with a food pantry named after the new pope. (The Chicago suburb in which he grew up intends to either purchase his childhood home that was up for sale, or obtain it through eminent domain, and allow it to be viewed and visited by the public as a historic site.) A lot of the papal tourism, however, is currently taking place in Rome. When in Rome Americans already account for the largest segment of tourist visits to Rome, with a record 2.5 million arriving in 2024 alone, according to The Guardian. Now that an American will occupy the Chair of St. Peter in Vatican City, though, vendors and various service providers are preparing for a full-on religious tourist invasion. Tour companies are reporting an increase in bookings for pilgrimages, especially from Americans. The owner of Atlante Star, a hotel in Rome known for its impressive view over St Peters Basilica, told The Guardian ahead of Pope Leos inaugural service on May 18 that the hotel was mostly full with people from North America, and not just pilgrims. And as in Chicago, culinary business owners near the Vatican, including gelato makers and brewers, are offering pope-themed confections to entice American visitors. Within two days of Pope Leo XIVs election, posters, magnets and other small items featuring him have gone on sale in Rome pic.twitter.com/LfVJWXiYLE— Reuters (@Reuters) May 10, 2025 Out on the streets of Rome, some vendors began to sell posters and trinkets bearing the new popes name and image within 48 hours of his election. No official Pope Leo XIV holy cards or rosaries have gone on sale yet in the Vatican gift shop, though, nor are any available at many of the other souvenir shops throughout the city, which are reportedly waiting for the authorization of the dicastery, a department within the administrative body of the Holy See, to be able to sell merch celebrating the new pope. Waiting seems like a wise moveand not just because it will give all remaining official Pope Francis merch a chance to sell out. Divine copyright protection The Vatican, it turns out, has a long history of legally protecting the popes image. Back in 2009, toward the end of Pope Benedict XVIs tenure, the Holy See essentially declared a divine copyright. Citing a “great increase of affection and esteem for the person of the Holy Father” as contributing to broader use the Pontiff’s name and image, the Vatican emphasized that “it alone has the right to ensure the respect due to the Successors of Peter, and therefore, to protect the Pope from unauthorized uses of his name, image, or any related symbols. Perhaps inspired by all the papal ephemera Pope Francis and his handlers would have seen during the 2015 trip to the U.S., the Vatican went on the offensive two years later. In 2017, it hired global law firm Baker McKenzie to protect the rights to its intellectual property. (Representatives for Baker McKenzie did not respond to Fast Companys request for comment on the work it may have done, or continues to do, for the Catholic Church.) Its unclear how long it will take for the Vatican to authorize official Pope Leo XIV merch. According to Italian news organization Agenzia Nazionale Stampa Associata, it could be as soon as a matter of weeks. In the meantime, the enterprising souls selling trinkets and sandwiches with the popes name appear to be taking advantage of a Wild West moment of slow trademark enforcement. In the long haul, those Da Pope shirts made in America fall under the parody allowance in the fair use doctrine, but the online merch store with the audacious URL officialpopeleoxiv.com seems destined for litigation. (The operator of the site did not respond to a request for comment, but WHOIS Domain Lookup shows that it went live on May 9 and operates out of Reykjavik.) Retailers selling rosaries decorated with Pope Leos face, and supposedly blessed by him, may be able to operate unimpeded for the moment. If any folks operating unauthorized shops are religious, though, a much greater punishment than litigation could serve as a deterrent.
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E-Commerce
When you describe it in words, the Indianapolis 500 might seem like a boring watch: Cars go round and round an oval track 200 times, totaling 500 miles over the course of a few hours. But if you were a driver, youd be having a hell of a different experience. Think screaming speeds of 230 miles per hour, pulling 4 Gs on corners, with ones reflexes and split-second decisions drawing a thin line between victory and tragedy . . . over the course of a few hours. Its a level of intensity that TV networks have been trying to bring viewers into for years with in-car cameras and things like driver radio communiques. It has been working. Last year, NBCwhich covered the spectacle from 20192024netted the most streams of the race ever and averaged 5.34 million total viewers, up from 4.9 million in 2023 and 4.8 million in 2022. This year marks FOXs first time ever broadcasting it, and they likely want that trend to continue, so theyre throwing all the tech they have at it. And that includes the innovative, diminutive Drivers Eye, dubbed the worlds smallest live broadcast camera, which brings fans directly into drivers’ helmets (quite literally) like never before. For the first time in Indy 500 history, viewers will have a view of the race exactly as its stars see it from within their helmetsfrom dramatic passes and vehicle-quaking jousts to the very mechanics of how they operate their cars at such speeds. [Photo: Bell Racing] Driver’s Eye brings the human factor, says Alex Miotto Haristos, COO of Racing Force Group, which owns the tech. It brings the struggle. And it could bring the ratings, tooespecially if it catches on in the series like it has in Formula 1. [Photo: Bell Racing] MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE The UK-born, Italy-raised Haristos is perhaps an unlikely creator of racing gear. He began his career in management consulting and later real estate before acquiring an electronics company and launching it as Zeronoise in 2018 with Stephane Cohen of Bell Racing Helmets. Haristos doesnt come from a racing background, but rather dubs himself a business engineer who saw it as an opportunity. He says he quickly found himself falling down the rabbit hole into a passion project given the sheer challenging nature of the Drivers Eye tech, which they began developing in 2019. Ray Harroun driving his Marmon Wasp, the first winner of the Indy Race in 1911. [Photo: Bettmann/Getty Images] That challenge is very real when youre working on a product meant to be inserted into a race-car drivers most critical piece of safety gear, particularly in a sport where said drivers head is sticking out of the car. Racing helmets are modern design marvels that evolved out of leather and cloth versions in the Indy 500’s early days to steel helmets in 1916. According to IndyCar, every driver has a primary and one or two backups, and theyre all custom-fit and produced per FIA (Federation Internationale de l’Automobile) standards. (Want to buy your own? Haristos says thatll cost you between $5,000 and $8,000.) The outer shell features ultralight carbon fiber; theres a fireproof liner; a built-in airbag to assist in helmet removal without neck strain; numerous elements to ensure maximum aerodynamics in 200+ mph runs; and audio insulation so drivers can communicate with their teams over the roar of 33 engines on the track. Your job is to not alter any feature of the helmet, Haristos says. The helmet you don’t touch. You have to work with what you have, and you have to manage to integrate everything seamlessly. This is the trick. [Photo: Bell Racing] The team set out to capture exactly what a driver was seeing on the racetrack, raw and unfiltered, shakes and alland quickly understood that they couldnt work on the outer surface of a helmet because it would be a safety issue. So they homed in on the side padding of the helmet that Haristos says is around a centimeter away from the eye, which, given the sensitive proximity, went through the FIA for approval, as well. The organizatin mandated a minuscule size and weight for the camera, so rather than starting with what image quality they wanted to achieve and so on, We started working backwards. And in the beginning it was like, No, this is impossible. Ultimately, the team had to break apart camera design as we know ita single unitand separate the internal systems to make it work. They stripped out everything they could for what needed to go in the helmet, and were left with a tiny sensor with the ability to capture high-res video (in the case of the Indy 500, in 1080p, 60fps) in the smallest of real estate. Today, that unit clocks in at 8.8 x 8.8 mm, and weighs less than a dime. Then, they moved the rest of the cameras guts to the car itself. Which is also a feat, particularly in Indy racing, which involves older cars that are already stuffed to the max from additions over the years. You can’t do one thing without affecting another, says Michael Davies, FOX EVP of field and technical management and operations. There’s no change that you can make on a car that doesn’t fuck something else up. And I’m always reminded of something a very smart man said, which is that when you solve a problem, you inevitably create another one, but you must make sure that the problem you create is smaller than the one that you solved. Haristos says that for Indy, they were told that the only available space was on the side of the car by the radiatornot an ideal spot, given the high temperature and so on. So they had to develop a custom housing that was more efficient and could operate at a higher temp while still fitting into the tightest of spaces. Ultimately, from the helmet camera to the housing, it was crucial that the additions all felt seamless to the driver. Comfort in motorsport translates into confidence, Haristos says. Confidence translates into performance. [Photo: Bell Racing] CROSSING THE POND Safety equipment manufacturer OMP Racing acquired Zeronoise in 2019and they also acquired Bell, a major purveyor of helmets to Formula 1 and the Indy 500, with 23 of the 33 drivers donning its headwear for the latter. (All the brands would eventually coalesce under the newly formed Racing Force Group in 2021; last year, it did $74.1 million in revenue, up 4.8% from 2023.) After they developed the first iteration of Drivers Eye, the team got it into Formula E racing in 2020, and was able to finalize the development of the tech, testing it in Formula 1 in 2021and giving race fanatics a new, visceral way to experience the sport. It gained ground, and in 2023 became mandatory in Formula 1. FOX tested Drivers Eye in some NASCAR races that same year, and now on Sunday youll be able to watch the Indy 500 from the perspective of 2023/2024 winner Josef Newgarden, Scott Dixon, Alex Palou, Will Power, Marcus Ericsson and Felix Rosenqvist. Josef Newgarden [Photo: Bell Racing] Of course, theres more tech wizardry at play behind the scenes than merely hooking up a camera. The Drivers Eye is mounted in a dark helmet with a massive underexposureand the track is a massive overexposure. Drivers race with different filters and colors on their visors, which they can tear off in layers periodically throughout the race as they get dirty. Moreover, the Indy 500 is hours long, there are varying weather scenarios, the sun and shadows are moving, and everything is very much in a state of flux. Haristos says Drivers Eye compensates for all of it, from white balance to the varying visor colors, with a mix of automatic and manual controls, making for a seamless sync with the rest of the program. (Which, lets be honest, is criticala director has to use the shots, lest Drivers Eye be rendered obsolete.) From a production standpoint, FOXs Davies says that since the system allows for a view of drivers hands on the controls and exactly what theyre looking at in any given moment, its also a boon to race commentators, who have told him thats its the most useful angle for them in being able to craft a narrative around whats happening on the track. Moreover, he says the raw nature of the footage truly shows the athleticism at play on the part of the drivers, something that can get lost in traditional shots. We can really cover the event from the inside out, instead of the outside in, he says. And on top of that, he adds, its something sponsors likeand request. Thus a bevy of IndyCar racings household names. now driving with the cameras embedded in their helmets. The Drivers Eye is just one tiny tool in FOXs arsenal, which seems designed to shock and aweand plant a flag in their take on the race. For the first time, live drones will be deployed, including custom high-speed FPV drones; there are more than 100 cameras in play, 108 mics, 16 in-car cameras offering views of drivers faces and cockpits, and more (including 5.1 surround sound thatll blow your head off). We’re playing some pretty big hits here and looking forward to seeing how it enhances the big race, Davies says. You can see it in a completely different wayeven if you’ve watched Indy for as long as it’s been on TV.
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