Since launching three years ago, the Chicagoland Food and Beverage Network has sought to make the region the “the Silicon Valley of food and beverage” by cultivating the kind of collaborative culture that made the Bay Area a hotbed of tech innovation.

This year, the group upped the ante with a project that pushed companies that normally might compete for business to instead put their heads together to create a product for a good cause.

In partnership with the Northern Illinois Food Bank, a group of nearly a dozen food companies created a low-sugar, high-protein hot chocolate, produced entirely with donated ingredients and know-how, for distribution to food pantries. Read more here.