Grist acquires The Counter and launches food and agriculture vertical

Grist, an award-winning, nonprofit media organization dedicated to highlighting climate solutions and uncovering environmental injustices, has acquired the nonprofit news site The Counter. Launched in 2015, The Counter investigated the forces shaping how and what America eats, and ceased publication in May 2022 due to a funding shortfall.

As part of the acquisition, Grist will maintain The Counter’s archives and will take ownership of the organization’s brand assets. Grist will carry on a large portion of The Counter’s mission by continuing to investigate “the forces shaping how and what America eats” and how those forces intersect with climate and the environment. To that end, today we’re launching a food and agriculture vertical, which includes two new hires:

Ayurella Horn-Muller joined Grist in April as a food and agriculture staff writer. She is an award-winning journalist based in Florida who has covered climate, justice, and food for Axios and Climate Central, and who has freelance bylines for The Guardian, CNN, National Geographic, USA Today, Forbes, and on NPR and PBS NewsHour. She is also the author of the book Devoured: The Extraordinary Story of Kudzu, the Vine That Ate the South, which was published in March.

Frida Garza will also join Grist as a food and ag staff writer. She was the editor of The Guardian US’s environmental justice series, America’s Dirty Divide, and also wrote stories on the culture of food in North America. Previously, she was a senior staff writer at Jezebel, covering culture and politics. A native of El Paso, Texas, she recently finished a master’s in labor studies, and is based in Brooklyn, New York. Garza starts on May 15.

Grist already has a decades-long track record covering the intersection of food, agriculture, and climate. Most recently, freelancer Julia O’Malley is a finalist for the James Beard Media Awards for her Grist story (in collaboration with Food & Environment Reporting Network) on Alaska’s missing snow crabs, and former Grist fellow Max Graham won this year’s Alaska Press Club Award for best long feature for his salmon coverage. But the acquisition of The Counter represents a significant expansion of the news site’s coverage of this critical beat.

“Food is a unique entry point through which to enter the climate conversation — and it’s one that everyone around the world can easily grasp,” said Nikhil Swaminathan, Grist’s CEO. “We were great admirers of The Counter’s work, and when the opportunity came to breathe new life into a brand we held in such high regard, we jumped. This new vertical will allow Grist to very clearly frame coverage of climate as what it literally is: a kitchen table issue.”