After spending a decade working in FinTech, Keegan realized that you can't eat money.
Written by
Keegan Francis
Keegan Francis is the Chief Technology Officer of Food Web. He brings 10+ years of experience building and leading technical teams in FinTech startups. From Halifax, Nova Scotia, to internationally operating companies, Keegan has brought and scaled several applications making him an ideal candidate to lead the Technology of Food Web.
Where meals are made.
My name is Keegan Francis, and long before I got into software, startups, or systems thinking, I learned my first lesson about the real foundation of any society: food.
When I graduated high school, my yearbook quote was:
“After the rivers have been poisoned, and the trees are all cut down, man will realize he cannot eat money.”
At eighteen, it felt like a dramatic environmental warning.
Years later, I’ve come to understand it as something much deeper:
without a resilient and accessible food system, nothing else we build matters.
In 2023, my cofounder Justin Andrews said something that permanently shifted my focus:
“Unless we solve the problem of bread, we will not have a true revolution.”
What he meant was simple:
communities cannot thrive, innovate, or build the future if they can’t feed themselves.
Every meaningful movement in history — cultural, economic, political — relied on people having access to the essentials. At the top of that list is food. If the grassroots can’t grow, cook, process, or produce what they need, then the entire system is fragile.
This idea became the foundation of why I joined Justin to build Food Web.
🎥: Watch the Podcast Episode on solving the problem of bread
Here in Canada, there is a glaring gap in our food system:
it’s extremely difficult for early-stage or small-scale food entrepreneurs to access licensed commercial kitchens.
Without this infrastructure, people can’t legally produce food for sale — even if they have the creativity, recipes, talent, and market demand.
At the same time, thousands of commercial kitchens sit unused for half the day:
This isn’t just an inefficiency — it’s an opportunity.
Food Web’s first product is exactly that:
A platform that connects people who need commercial kitchen space with the kitchens that already exist.
A frictionless shared-infrastructure model — simple, practical, and long overdue.
If entrepreneurs can easily rent licensed kitchen time, they can:
This single piece of infrastructure unlocks entire value chains.
And once you see the impact, it becomes obvious:
kitchen access is a cornerstone of a resilient, local food economy.
But kitchens are just the start.
Food Web Asset Mapping Inc. is building tools to understand and connect the entire food system — from remote farmers to processors, distributors, and communities. The long-term vision is global, but our first steps are grounded right here in Canada, solving a real, immediate problem.
Every entrepreneur who can create and sell local food is one more pillar in a resilient, decentralized food network.
I’ve worked in fast-growing startups, in technical roles, in education, and in community building. But this work — Food Web — feels like the most important thing I’ve ever been part of.
Because at the end of the day:
Every time we help someone access a kitchen, launch a product, or create their first revenue stream, we’re not just helping one business — we’re strengthening the system around them.
That’s why I’m here.
That’s why we’re building this.
And that’s why Food Web exists.