Foodprint, the tool to calculate the environmental impact of recipes

Foodprint is just one of the achievements. In three years, the Life Climate Smart Chefs project has engaged 164 chefs from all 27 EU countries, including 63 from Italy, providing them with over 250 hours of online and in-person training. Professional caterers and chefs have a direct and increasingly strong impact on our daily diet - just think of how often we eat out - but they are also a source of inspiration for the choice of ingredients and cooking styles, and in general, ambassadors of food culture. The aim was to turn these professionals into promoters of low-emission, nutritious and convenient diets, which they will be able to apply in practice in the restaurants, businesses and canteens where they work.
The project asked chefs to provide six recipes that best represented them when they enrolled in the training course. Of each one, the real climate impact was calculated: more than one in three recipes exceeded the ideal value by at least six times and, alone, corresponded to the total amount of CO2 that should be associated with an entire food day. The recipes were then reworked by the same chefs who had proposed them to meet the average sustainability standard of a low-impact menu.
Education and Technology

In addition to the courses, the field experience resulted in a ten-point document. It is a decalogue for putting sustainability into practice in the catering sector, starting from sourcing and menu design to communication with customers and the community in which one works. Antonelli continues: 'It is the result of a year of workshops involving chefs, associations, gastronomic and environmental experts, as well as our advisory board which includes, among others, Michelin-starred chef Chiara Pavan and Professor Riccardo Valentini, Nobel Peace Prize winner in 2007 and member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the United Nations scientific group dedicated to the study of global warming. It is a document that we want to bring to institutional appointments as well'. Antonelli emphasises that incentives and support are needed for the gastronomy sector to reduce the impact of these changes in the short term and translate it into business opportunities. The chef is potentially a game changer, he is in the strategic position between suppliers and the supply chain system and consumers'. How to do this, concretely? "Through targeted education and the use of technology. The accessibility of training on these topics must be increased, but there is usually a major barrier to access, especially economically. And a link must be created up and down the menu: purchasing, waste, energy use. Every chef should have a technological system that allows all these elements to talk to each other, to give a complete view of his daily work'.

Antonelli says that a network has been set up between the chefs who participated in the course and that 'each of the partner organisations in the project will continue to invest time and resources in ensuring that this evolves and that the network of chefs involved grows, through trade associations and training schools. The aim is also to develop a system to track what the chefs have achieved by actually applying what they have learnt in their menus. A transformation movement must be created: the more inclusivex, connected to the territory and the people, the more successful it will be'.

Moving towards a more conscious diet is the single most impactful action everyone can take to reduce their impact on the Planet. The agri-food system contributes about 37% of global greenhouse gas emissions, but a recent study published in Nature Climate Change finds that the amount and type of what we eat, as well as where the food is produced, also determine huge differences in emissions. The research analysed 140 products in 139 countries and found that by adopting the parameters of the EAT-Lancet diet, it is possible to reduce the Co2 associated with the sector by 17% by limiting the consumption of meat and dairy products and increasing that of legumes and nuts as the main sources of protein. The authors of the study focused on the 56% of the world's population who consume excess food: acting on this cluster would reduce food system emissions by about 32.4%.

The award for the 'best sustainable restaurant' went to Chef Amabile Cortiglia of Ristolab, in Pollica, for 'the focus on the use of seasonal, indigenous and wild ingredients from the Cilento region, prepared with zero-waste techniques, preserving and rediscovering ancient local traditions, actively involving the community,' reads the motivation. Second and third place were awarded respectively to Chef Telmo Neto (of the Vilaplana restaurant in Porto, Portugal) and Chef René Bekker (of the Novice restaurant in Amersfoort, the Netherlands).
Pastry chef Matteo Farsoni from Valduggia, Piedmont, was awarded for the 'best sustainable recipe', i.e. two vegetarian dishes made with local ingredients, with low cost and environmental impact, and easily replicable by changing the ingredients according to seasonality and availability. Second and third place in this category went to Cypriot chef Evi Chioti and chef Nazario Contardi.
The prize for the "best non-profit initiative", went to the project Orizzonte Sale, from Venice, focusing on the edible potential of halophytes - plants capable of thriving in saline environments - as a tool for adapting to climate change, realised by environmental scientist Filippo Grassi, designer and researcher Lodovica Guarnieri and chef and researcher Lorenzo Barbasetti from Prun, in collaboration with a network of farmers and gastronomic professionals. Second and third place were awarded respectively to the @worldchefs network and the association Tempi di Recupero, focused on the enhancement of gastronomic recovery..