Food & Culture Sustainability Festival 2022 - Gastronomica

Rethinking the influence of food & drink in the modern world

The Mission

To help people think and feel differently about food & drink, to enable and inspire individual actions to build a better world

To showcase the importance of food service and hospitality in a completely new way. The industry does need to engage and communicate in new ways. So much has changed during the pandemic and consumers understand far better the importance the role of food service and hospitality as well as the need to be more sustainable.

Altogether we have an opportunity in a generation to create genuine, meaningful change.

Coming together

Over the last seven months, there have been a number of discussions on this concept and a collaboration of over 25 companies are interested to be involved to be the developing of the proposed festival. This alone has been a success, seeing so many companies engage and be prepared to work together to achieve a common goal, to work together to communicate in a new way and with new messages. The aim is to build a broad industry collaboration which sees more than 50 companies work together to build a new message and deliver the festival.

THE FESTIVAL EXPERIENCE

The aim is for attendees to experience the physical Festival which takes them on a journey through the past, to the present and to the future.

The Past - the experience will aim to bring to life the history of food since WW2 ended in 1945.

From Rationing to Ramen

The key parts of this will be:

-Immediate scarcity of food during and after the war years
-The realisation that the global population would grow exponentially in the next 50 years
-The very real risk of global starvation through insufficient production
-Norman Borlaug’s seed revolution, and the introduction of science to farming
-The changing face of food retailing and distribution of food
-Food – the world traveller – food as a traded global commodity
-The introduction of processed foods using wheat, sugar and fat – calorie intensity
-The impacts on our weight and health
-Nature’s degradation – biodiversity, rainforests, and soils
-Carbon and plastics impact of food
-The explosion of hospitality and world cuisines
-The enormous success we had meeting the challenge of “Feeding the World”

THE PRESENT

We’ve done it before, we can do it again

The aim is to create a hedonistic experience featuring exploring, debating, cooking, and tasting. Exhibitors, onsite Caterers, NGO and industry contributors, speakers and entertainment How can we all contribute to the message “we’ve done it before, we can do it again”. There will be a showcase of what all are doing today to drive change in how we eat for a better world.

We together will work to create a better future and that work has started

THE FUTURE

How food can save the world

Key elements of these will be:

-Climate Change
-Soils
-Health

The key themes within will be:

-Low carbon world
-Healthy foods, healthy diets, healthy people
-A return to biodiversity and high value soils
-Return to the meaning and value of food
-Food as a part of place
-Food as a part of culture
-Elimination of food waste
-Access to good food for all

Food and Hospitality plays a major role in today’s society. Let’s engage together and make a case through interactive events which will create lasting change.