Fortune Cookie maker looks to fight hate with tasty messages of love

NEW YORK - Shawn Porat says his mission is to take a bite out of hate - one fortune cookie at a time.

The New York native is the Chief Fortune Officer at OpenFortune. Their team is responsible for writing the fortunes found inside up to 2 billion cookies worldwide and 90-percent of fortune cookies here in the United States. This means the message inside your cookie was likely written by them!

"The amount of hatred out there is mind-boggling right now, and since we have a platform that reaches most of America, we had to do something about it," he said. "We reach people as they’re not distracted, their phones are on the table, they’re opening a cookie with both hands, and they’re speaking with their family and friends."

With antisemitism and hate crimes on the rise - Shawn is modifying the messaging inside these cookies.

"An example is ‘empathy is the key to a peaceful coexistence,’" he said. "These are the types of fortunes that we’re putting in the cookies. Choose kindness, be kinder to someone you don’t agree with."

The hope is to promote peace and tolerance with a special focus on delivering these fortunes to restaurants close to college campuses where there has been an increase in hate. 

"We are actually donating 10 million fortune cookies to over 5,000 restaurants," Porat said.

The cookies will circulate in restaurants around the country in December and January. If there’s enough of an impact, the plan is to double down and push out 20 million more by the end of the first quarter.

"We are not going to be able to change people’s minds immediately, but we could start the positive conversation among family and friends at the dinner table."