Presentation of SCWC 2022

We would like to give you a sneak preview of what part of the Science and Cooking World Congress 2022 will consist of. Over the next few months we will be revealing the different blocks that will make up the structure of the congress and we will try to give you a glimpse of the fascinating speakers who will be taking part in this edition and the different themes that will be addressed on each of the days.

This year’s theme is ingredients, and our aim is to analyse ingredients from the point of view of tradition and innovation, always from a scientific perspective and with scientific rigour. We want to analyse gastronomy in a systemic way, but focusing on ingredients as a starting point. Within this great theme, we will be able to see different angles and different ways of seeing and understanding gastronomy, but all with the aim of generating a more sustainable and inclusive world.

As every year, we will start the congress with an opening session with the participation of the different public institutions (University of Barcelona and Parma, Barcelona City Council and Barcelona Provincial Council) that help us to make the congress possible, as well as the president Pere Castells will make a brief presentation and will highlight the evolution of the scientific manifesto that was developed in 2019 during the I Science and Cooking World Congress Barcelona.

Then, this year we are going to inaugurate the congress, as it could not be otherwise, with the honorary president of the congress Harold Mcgee, who will present the opening speech “Sowing the future” by Joan Roca. Sowing the future is a documentary that has been released in 2022 by the Celler de Can Roca with the aim of generating sustainable awareness through reflection on the role of the chef in the recovery of extinct and marginalised foods. The documentary focuses especially on the importance of preserving biodiversity as one of the strategies for the sustainability of the planet.

After the opening speech, we will start with the first block called “Ingredients and society” coordinated by Florence Egal. Florence is a specialist in Public Health, but above all in food security and nutrition. In the 1990s, she worked for the United Nations within the Food and Agriculture Organisation and was co-secretary of the FAO’s “Food for the Cities” initiative until 2013. Since then, she has been involved in the dissemination and promotion of sustainable food structures through various projects and programmes.

The first presentation in this block will be led by Iain Shepherd from EAT Forum. Iain is the global communications and engagement director of EAT. For those of you who don’t know, EAT is a non-profit start-up dedicated to transforming the food system through science, innovation and collaboration. Their goal is to create a more sustainable food system by 2050. They have many initiatives, programmes and projects. At the conference, Iain will present the role of chefs in promoting sustainability through their choices of ingredients and products.

The second presentation of the block will be given by Moez El Shohdi, co-founder and CEO of the Food Bank of Egypt, one of the most important NGOs in the country that fights to eradicate hunger by working collaboratively. Moez will explain the importance of reducing food waste within the hospitality sector and the social relevance that this entails.

Finally, we will close the block with Nicolo Fenú from Sardarch, a spin off of the University of Cagliari that aims to study and research on different phenomena of urban transformation in order to propose strategies with a multidisciplinary approach to promote citizen engagement and collaborative urbanism.  Nicolo will address the challenges and opportunities for chefs in sparsely populated rural areas and explain ways to reconcile tradition and innovation for social and territorial transformation.

These talks with a social and inclusive approach, led by Florence Egal, will kick off the 2022 congress.

Tickets: https://bit.ly/3tWgsX0