Food For Soul:
the well-being of people through food
Food is culture. The way it is produced, processed and consumed reflects the society we live in. Social exclusion and food waste are two of the critical issues of our time. Dealing with them means doing our part for a fairer and more sustainable world.
In 2015, at the Milan Expo, award-winning chef Massimo Bottura gathered together the best talents in global gastronomy to transform the surplus of food from the Exposition into nutritious and healthy meals for people in need. This sparked the idea behind Food for Soul, the non-profit founded by the chef and his wife Lara Gilmore: a cultural project and a network of social refectories scattered all over the world, where food surpluses become balanced and rewarding meals for people who live in conditions of social vulnerability.
The initiative is therefore an invitation to appreciate and reconsider food, and so to act on important issues such as social isolation and the reuse of resources that would otherwise be wasted. Gaining awareness of the difficulties that many face daily is the first step to take concrete action and make a difference. The collaboration between our global Lavazza brand and Food for Soul has meant precisely this: supporting projects dedicated to the well-being of people, which in turn positively affects the health of our planet.
People, places and food
Born in 2015, Food For Soul manages as of today 13 refectories in 9 countries around the world, but the list is set to grow. Together, in 7 years of activity, these facilities have already recovered tons of food and delivered over 2 million meals to more than 1 million guests. In the welcoming spaces of the refectories, these people have also found nourishment in training courses that help them to gain self sufficiency.
The link with Massimo Bottura and Food for Soul
Coffee and haute cuisine are two worlds in constant dialogue. Sharing an ongoing drive for innovation has been our touchpoint with Massimo Bottura and, with Food for Soul, it also embraced social commitment and responsibility towards people and the planet. Almost ten years during which Bottura has been our ambassador along a shared pathto inspire models of collective change, starting from two great Italian traditions: gastronomy and hospitality.
“The Revived Recipes”
In addition to helping those in need, restoring the right value to food helps prevent it from being thrown away unnecessarily. To mark Halloween, Massimo Bottura, Carlo Cracco and Norbert Niederkofler have shown us how to recover ingredients that are near their sell-by date or apparently deteriorated, in three spectacular recipes. To convey the message that the real monster is waste, not food that’s past its prime, with the “The Revived Recipes” project Lavazza and Food for Soul invited people to fight food waste. The initiative was part of the Blend for Better communication platform, which tells the story of our and our brands’ commitment to generating shared value for society, people and the environment.
