The theme of this year’s Food & Wine Classic in Aspen was “The Innovators,” putting the spotlight on wine and culinary leaders who are doing the most to change the way we eat and drink. I learned how the African American wine industry is forging ahead, found out what tactics the restaurant industry has employed to keep their businesses profitable and discovered some food finds.

Friday night’s opening dinner featured award-winning Black chefs and vintners in an evening called the “Black-on-Black Chef’s Dinner” at Hotel Jerome.

JJ Johnson was the chef for the opening dinner. He won the James Beard Award for best author for his cookbook “Between Harlem and Heaven” and is owner of Fieldtrip, a rice bowl shop in New York’s Harlem neighborhood. He paired “a six-course, soul-inspired dinner” with wines “from five Black-owned superstars of the wine world.”

“This is the first dinner like this in the Food & Wine classic,” Johnson said. “But there will be more to come.”

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The next day, I attended a seminar titled “Reshaping the Restaurant Landscape: How Challenges Create Opportunities.” Two of the panelists — Katie Button and Meherwan Irani, both based in the small town of Asheville, N.C. — had won James Beard Awards on June 14 just before heading to Aspen.

Button, whose award was for outstanding hospitality, owns Cúrate, a retail and online source for Spanish foods, with her husband, Felix Meana. But the store had started as a bagel shop.

“I felt urgency and fear when we were shut down because of the pandemic,” she said. “We had to do something else to make a living. We turned our bagel shop into a retail place to sell products Felix could source from Spain. Then we learned about e-commerce.”

Irani, who is originally from India, won the Beard Award for outstanding restaurant for his Chai Pani eatery.

“My food is a love story to the street food of India,” he said, “and love to my employees. Employees are the most important part to making my restaurants grow.”

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A third panelist, Yannick Benjamin, a sommelier and owner of Contento, a bistro in East Harlem, with his business partner George Gallego, designed the restaurant to be accessible to people with disabilities.

“One reason that people with disabilities don’t go out to eat is fear of rejection,” he said.

Benjamin was paralyzed from the waist down in a car wreck when he was in his 20s.

“The disabilities community is an untapped market in the restaurant industry. We saw the need.” he said. “And by filling that need, it became a way to meet the challenges of the restaurant industry.”

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Finally, here are two food items to check out: the Heinz 57 Collection and Wine Chips.

Heinz 57 selected the weekend to launch a new line of spicy condiments that are flavor bombs and can be found online at walmart.com.

Wine Chips are chips made to pair with wine. Ray Isle, executive wine editor for Food & Wine magazine, used them at a seminar titled “Wine & Potato Chips: Salt, Pepper, Minot, and More!”

“These are by far the best chips I’ve ever tasted,” Isle said.

For the tasting, we had the Aspen Pairing Kit, with six bags of flavored potato chips; a card is included that shows what wines to pair with each flavor of chip. Find the kit at winechips.com for $24.99.

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