L'Italo-Americano

THURSDAY, MARCH 5, 2020 www.italoamericano.org 22 L'Italo-Americano " We live in an ever- g r o w i n g s o c i e t y , w h a t w e e a t a n d h o w w e p r o d u c e affects the whole life of our planet. Over 2 billion people have access-to-food problems and over 1 billion suffer from obesity and other malnutrition-related dis- eases." These few lines are at the core of the project behind Food Makers.The Future of Nutrition, a documen- t a r y t h a t c h r o n i c l e s t h e round-the-world journey of some students of the Food Innovation Program to learn and understand how food is changing. The docu- mentary was also presented at the 2019 Cinema Italian Style in San Francisco in November. Writer Nick Difino and Director Enrica Cavalli fol- lowed fifteen students during t h e i r t i m e s p e n t i n c i t i e s across ten countries. From Boston, Davis, San Francisco t o K y o t o , S h a n g h a i , Singapore; from Tel Aviv, L o n d o n , M a a s t r i c h t , Wageningen to Bologna and the Puglia region, they met and interviewed what they call "Food Heroes." The glob- al community we live in is growing at a high speed, thus where and what we eat, as well as how we produce food, affect the life of the planet. The documentary is a wake- up call for everybody, as we can all contribute to building a b e t t e r f o o d s y s t e m a n d working on a more democra- tic international food policy. The Food Institute is an Italian-based non-profit that aims to build a more equi- table world through enlight- ening a world-class breed of innovators, boosting entre- p r e n e u r i a l p o t e n t i a l a n d improving agri-food exper- t i s e a n d t r a d i t i o n . T h e Institute focuses on educa- tion, advocacy and communi- ty building around food sus- tainability. It has some cru- cial institutional partnerships with United Nation Food and A g r i c u l t u r e O r g a n i z a t i o n (UNFAO), SAP Next-Gen, United Nations Industrial Development Organization ( U N I D O ) , a s w e l l a s Academic partnerships such a s U C D a v i s ( U S ) , W a g e n i n g e n U n i v e r s i t y (Netherlands), Poly U (Hong K o n g ) , T o n i j y U n i v e r s i t y (China). Every year, it delivers sev- eral educational programs ( i . e . F o o d I n n o v a t i o n Program, Climate Change Summer Schools), research papers (i.e. Food Shapers books) and media content ( F o o d M a k e r s Documentary). The Future F o o d N e t w o r k a n d Future Food Americas support food and beverage o r g a n i z a t i o n s i n t o t h e i r innovation journey towards more sustainable solutions. The Future Food Farm is a sort of playground for com- panies that need to improve efficiency, supporting train- ing courses and experimen- tation in areas in precision farming and big data analy- sis. It is located in Emilia Romagna, Italy. Future Food Living Lab is a net- w o r k o f p h y s i c a l s p a c e s where you can find a food- c o u r t ( o f f e r i n g h e a l t h y , appealing and locally grown food), innovation labs, test- i n g k i t c h e n s a n d e v e n t spaces. Right now, they have 2 spaces which are officially opened (Bologna and Tokyo) and a series of on-going pro- jects that aims to open Labs (San Francisco, New York, Santiago, Singapore). In order to explore how the documentary came to life, as well as what we can d o t o h e l p , w e t a l k e d t o C h i a r a C e c c h i n i , t h e Director of the Future Food US. Chiara manages interna- tional research projects as well as its US business rela- tions; after she got a MSc in International Management i n F r a n c e , a M S c i n International Relations in Moscow, and a MSc in Food Innovation at UniMoRe in Italy, she is now based in California, where she also serves as Research Scholar at F o o d S c i e n c e a n d Technology at UC Davis. C h i a r a , y o u a r e t h e Director of the Future Food Institute. Can you tell us a bit about your work and the institute? O u r m i s s i o n a t F u t u r e Food is to empower people, organizations, and institu- tions to become more con- scious and responsible citi- z e n s o f o u r f o o d s y s t e m , adopting a sustainable and regenerative mindset. As far as I'm concerned, for exam- ple, I'm the co-founder and C E O o f F u t u r e F o o d Americas, managing every- thing that happens in North a n d S o u t h A m e r i c a . T h i s means that I'm managing all the innovation projects that s o m e h o w i n v o l v e a n American client, and also all the research and educational projects that are happening over here (where "over here" goes from Canada to Chile). The Institute tries to d e l i v e r o n f o u r m a i n areas: culture, business, community, and environ- ment. What's the most challenging and why? This is all correlated, so it might be very hard to untan- gle it. I would say that the Institute started with the bold vision of generating the culture, which is a very hard task, especially when you start to operate international- ly. But the belief behind it is t h a t y o u c a n n o t c h a n g e behaviors without changing the mindsets, and you cannot c h a n g e m i n d s e t s w i t h o u t understanding and impacting cultures. L e t ' s t a l k a b o u t t h e d o c u m e n t a r y a n d t h e idea behind it. The idea of the documen- tary was born when we put t o g e t h e r o u r f i r s t F o o d Innovation Global Mission in 2017. The FIGM is a 60-day research trip across the main food hubs across the world. We bring together from 15 to 20 researchers that are part of our educational programs and, together with our team and some companies, we dive deep into some of the hot topics of the industry, inter- viewing experts, spending time inside universities, visit- ing emerging and big compa- nies. T h e d o c u m e n t a r y i s o r g a n i z e d b y c h a p t e r . H o w d i d y o u c o m e u p with them? The chapters represent very interesting innovation areas that we tapped into during the trip. Looking at everything we experienced, we saw some interesting clus- ters both in terms of topics and perspectives. And that's how the five chapters came to l i f e : 1 . T h i n k D i f f e r e n t ; 2 . W a s t e t o T a s t e ; 3.Alternative Proteins; 4. Food Care; 5. Edu-farming. They want to explain why the f u t u r e i s a l s o a m a t t e r o f thought; to explore the solu- tions to reinvent the way wasted food is currently pro- d u c e d a n d c h a n n e l e d ; t o describe how to have a fair p r o t e i n i n t a k e w i t h o u t impacting the environment; to show how hospitals, uni- versities and large companies are devoting more attention and research to the food they offer to their patients and employees everyday; and to a n a l y z e h o w t o p r o v i d e healthy food for all in a sus- tainable way. C a n y o u t e l l u s h o w this working group got together? It is crucial that people with different backgrounds start talking about food and its future. Once we realized how incredibly insightful this project would look like, we thought that it would have been crazy not documenting it. That's when we reached out to two people that were c l o s e t o F u t u r e F o o d Institute, and are leaders in the media industry: Enrica Cavalli and Nick Difino. What's your takeaway from this experience? T h e F I G M , a n d c o n s e - quently supporting the docu- mentary creation, was an unforgettable experience for me. My big realization was that we all live in a bubble. It's not our fault at all, it's actually the way we are coded but, depending on what we do and where we live, we all tend to stick to people who are, think and look similar to us. Getting exposed to such a huge difference in a short amount of time was over- whelming, yet eye-opening. At the end of the day, it was what we had in mind when we designed this project: gathering a diverse group of students, and exposing them to diversity. Since then, I've p e r s o n a l l y b e e n h a v i n g a hard time sticking to one sin- g l e p l a c e . I t r a v e l a l o t because this allows me to learn ways of approaching challenges that I would have never imagined. Being able to do it is a gift, and I'm humbly grateful for it. Having "that inner push" that is needed in order to go out of my comfort z o n e i s a r e s u l t o f m a n y efforts, and I think everyone should work hard to develop it. What's your next pro- j e c t a n d w h a t ' s y o u r e x p e c t a t i o n o n 2 0 2 0 from a food perspective? We started working with a big plant-based food compa- ny on many innovation pro- jects and that is amazing. It's always exciting to work with organizations that are both committed to good changes and do work with minimally processed food. We have also been accepted into a program in Santiago de Chile which will require me to be more present in Latin America in t h e n e x t m o n t h s . A n d o f course, we are also planning to release the Food Makers Documentary to the public, hopefully through a big part- ner. SERENA PERFETTO Documentary "Food Makers" explains how the future of food depends on how we live and produce today SAN FRANCISCO ITALIAN COMMUNITY Chiara Cecchini is the US Director of the Food Institute and worked on the documentary

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