A room full of people who read ingredient labels for a living raised more than $1 million in one night. FARE, the country’s leading food allergy organization, held its 2026 Gala on October 21 at Cipriani 42nd Street in New York, under the theme “Creating a Table for All,” and the money goes to research, education, and advocacy for a disease that affects more than 33 million Americans.
The program was built around personal testimony rather than ceremony. Janai Norman, the journalist and former news anchor who hosted the evening, spoke about her own family’s food allergy journey. Comedian Matt Friend, who headlined the entertainment, told his food allergy story from the stage, working the point FARE itself makes about him: the disease is no laughing matter, and laughter is still a way to bring a room together. Chef Tyler Florence received the FARE Hospitality Leadership Award, and ARS Pharma received the FARE Trailblazer Award.
Why a drug company got the innovation award
The ARS Pharma honor has a specific logic. The company makes neffy, an epinephrine nasal spray that the FDA approved in August 2024 as the first needle-free treatment for severe allergic reactions, including anaphylaxis. It was the first new way to deliver epinephrine in more than 35 years, in a field where the standard tool had been an auto-injector that frightened parents hesitate to use on a child. For a gala audience of families who carry that equipment everywhere, a spray that removes the needle is not an abstraction.
The evening also doubled as a governance announcement. Norman and Florence are both recently elected members of FARE’s board, which means the host and the headline honoree now sit on the body that sets the organization’s direction.
Where the money goes next
FARE enters its 15th year with its work organized around prevention, management, and a cure. On prevention, early introduction guidance for allergenic foods is now written into the 2025-2030 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, and FARE is lobbying Congress to add infant-safe allergenic foods to WIC infant food packages. On management, its FARECheck program trained more than 120,000 food service professionals in 2025, with further restaurant training news promised in November. On the cure side, its Mind Meld Team Grant Program, led by a Nobel laureate, will put up to $10 million behind multidisciplinary research teams.
Chief executive Sung Poblete closed the case for the room in terms of scale. “Food allergy can begin at any age, and the science we advance today may one day protect you, your children, and your grandchildren,” she said. “Because science for one benefits everyone.”
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