Prepared Foods talks with JeanMarie Brownson, culinary director at Conagra Brands, Chicago. Brownson joined Conagra in September 2016, just a few months after the company acquired Frontera Foods Inc., which Brownson co-founded in 1996 with Rick Bayless and Manny Valdes. At Frontera, Brownson was in charge of all new product development, quality control and consumer educational materials.

A Chicago native, Brownson is an accomplished chef and writer. She has been awarded with several prestigious recognitions for her writing including the James Beard Foundations International Cookbook Award for “Mexico – One Plate at a Time,” which she co-authored with Bayless and his wife Deann; and the International Association of Culinary Professionals Award for “Dinner at Home,” a collection of her favorite recipes from her long-running bimonthly food column in the Chicago Tribune which goes by the same name