Foodture Barcelona Augmented Gastronomy-Beyond Sustainability, created by Barcelona Centre de Disseny (BCD) and Plat Institute, celebrates this Friday and Saturday its third edition returning to the in-person format at the Disseny Hub Barcelona. It has been conceived as an in-person meeting, but includes the possibility of following it via streaming. The Foodture Platform will also be available for consultation, a space that brings together some of the most disruptive international projects in food and health that the organization has been detecting in this last year.
This event on innovation in food design, food tech, and sustainability focuses this year on the climate emergency, showing how real solutions for global emergencies can be proposed through disruptive innovation and healthy and accessible food. Talks, workshops, and experiences in gastronomy and mixology have been programmed, with the aim of being able to see, hear, and taste these initiatives. There will also be space for sustainable innovation awards to combat food waste and an exhibition area that gathers the best proposals from emerging talents.
Beyond the programmed activities, these days are committed to showcasing emerging talent through the Showcase de Talent, where design schools and universities Elisava, IED, Fablab, IAAC, ESDI, and BAU will show the public the projects they are developing. The future promises of the sector will also be presented at the award ceremony for the Foodture de Innovación Sostenible by Alpro prize. A total of 40 proposals have been submitted, all designed to provide a solution to food waste, and the winner will be announced on Friday afternoon, with participation in an acceleration program as a prize. Likewise, the event will host the Empowering Women in Agrifood awards, a program by EIT Food that provides comprehensive support to ten female entrepreneurs with innovation projects in the agri-food sector, with awards of 10,000 and 5,000 euros to implement their projects.
Talks and round tables
Specifically, the day will kick off on Friday with the presentations Regenerative Brands, with the participation of speakers such as Al Gore's former consultant on sustainability and current president of Waste Atlas, Antonis Mavropoulus; the president of Seaqual, Michael Chtepa; the researcher at the Azti scientific center Marga Andrés, and the head of sustainability and nutrition at Danone, Suelen Souza.
The day will continue with the Women in Food panel, in which chefs Carme Ruscalleda, Laura Veraguas, and Adnaloy Osio will participate, to discuss gastronomic innovation from a gender perspective. The talk will serve to highlight women's talent in a sector mainly led by men, as evidenced by the fact that only five women are recognized in the list of the 40 best chefs in Spain.
Al Gore's former sustainability consultant and current president of Waste Atlas, Antonis Mavropoulus; the president of Seaqual, Michael Chtepa; Azti scientific center researcher Marga Andrés, and Danone's head of sustainability and nutrition, Suelen Souza, will kick off the day.The Friday program will be completed with the round tableFood design for the planet. The studies ofSbioticaandNEVER Studywill take the opportunity to debate what the world of creativity and design can offer to current restoration to help regenerate the planet.
The meeting on innovation in food design, food tech and sustainability will continue on Saturday with workshops. There will be one with Luki Huber and Gerrit Jan Veldman, the designers who revolutionized the world of cooking together with Ferran Adrià. In Foodture Box Experience, they will break down the Manual Thinking Box, a gastronomic creativity method to innovate in the delivery and take away offer.
Another workshop will be Post War Food, where Iván Merino and Sergi Freixas (Biscuits Barcelona) will design new strategies through food design to solve food problems that arise after crises such as a war or a pandemic.
Gastronomic experiences
In the talk Augmented Gastronomy & Mixology, the proposals of VOM Edible Cloud and the cocktail bar Paradiso will be presented. Once the conference ends, attendees will be able to taste their creations in the Drinkslab, a laboratory for the creation and tasting of beverages, in the form of solid and aerial cocktails. In the Drinkslab, there will also be special tasting sessions of Las Numeradas de Cervezas Alhambra, beers aged in old oak barrels; Las Jellys, edible gelatin cocktails, or Lov Ferments, healthy fermented drinks.
But the gastroexperience that Foodture Barcelona has organized does not end here. There will be an opportunity to discover Taste the Future, a dialogue between the past and future of food, where Food & Mambo and Hidden Factory will create a menu combining future proteins from Cocuus Cooking Science with local products from Horta de Tramuntana or Cal Tomàs. All paired with a selection of organic wines from Celler Credo and The Green Wine Philosophy, and with 100% edible and 100% biodegradable cutlery, designed by the startup Voilà by Laura Gispert.