The Founders’ Vision
The two founders, Massimo Boturra and Lara Gilmore, started Food for Soul in 2016. Massimo Boturra had managed his three-Michelin-star restaurant Osteria Francescana for over twenty years, becoming one of the world’s leading chefs. Lara Gilmore had been working at Osteria Francescana, focusing on marketing and communication. Bringing Massimo’s 2015
decision to dedicate his energy to the issue of food waste and the formation of community projects together with Lara’s in-depth knowledge of contemporary art and of the importance of culture and art as tools for inspiring change, Food for Soul was formed with the goal of redefining the role of traditional community kitchens.
Headquarter in Modena, Italy, Food for Soul is a partner of the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) and founder Massimo Bottura serves as a UNEP Goodwill Ambassador to support nature-based solutions that meet the challenges affecting planetary health and advance the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Food for Soul engages in community partnerships around the world.
Values
Food for Soul sees its values as essential to the organization’s culture and identity. These include: collaboration, potential, empathy, excellence, integrity, and imagination.
Guiding Principles
Guiding principles bring the organization’s values alive. Food for Soul believes that by collaborating with people from different fields, the quality of ideas will significantly improve operations and leverage their power to inspire others; it believes moments of beauty – be it art, design, music or an act of kindness – can take people out of their daily experience and help them to connect with each other, embracing empathy and forming connections that can be powerful forces of change; and it believes the value of hospitality creates experiences through which people can
be seen and cared for, thereby ensuring a sense of dignity, caring, and belonging that motivates stakeholders to express themselves and their ideas.
Programs
Food for Soul operates around three program areas: refettorios, a learning network, and an
innovation hub. Through these programs, Food for Soul attempts to build community resilience through strategic alliances and resources that can create a safety network of systems that allow communities to be responsive to the social, cultural, ecological, and economic changes they face; attempts to enhance social mobility by providing for basic human needs, increasing well-being and accelerating opportunities for social mobility and economic growth through partnerships, programming and professional training courses; and, attempts to build healthy and equitable food systems by increasing food access, reducing food insecurity and raising awareness around the social and environmental impacts of waste.
Refettorios
Refettorios are “physical spaces designed as community hubs to inspire and empower human potential.” The word Refettorio comes
Refettorios are 'physical spaces designed as community hubs to inspire and empower human potential.'
— Food Central Kitchen
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