Watch a recording of Tomorrow Tastes Mediterranean: Virtual Conference here.

On November 16, we celebrated the 10th anniversary of the designation by UNESCO of the Mediterranean Diet as an Intangible Cultural Heritage with a virtual conference featuring presentations and roundtables with members of the Torribera Mediterranean Center advisory councils. 

We also released a digital magazine featuring articles, case studies, and recipes that focus on and highlight successful examples related to the mission of the Torribera Mediterranean Center.

Tomorrow Tastes Mediterranean aims to help the restaurant, foodservice and affiliated sectors better understand and transfer the healthful, sustainable, and cultural principles of the Mediterranean Diet into menus and products suited to the demands of 21st century consumers. Along with members of the TMC advisory councils who represent some of the world’s foremost scholars, chefs, and other experts within and beyond the Mediterranean region, we will help translate theory into practice, to inspire new foods and menus that are healthier for people, planet, and profits.

It’s one thing to know that the traditional Mediterranean Diet is healthful and sustainable—and of great cultural significance.  It’s another to understand how to operationalize this dietary pattern into strategies for menus that reflect customer preferences and companies’ abilities to support those menus with ingredients and product solutions.  Scientists who study the Mediterranean Diet rarely know much about the realities of the professional kitchen—whether that kitchen is in an independent restaurant, cruise ship, office cafeteria, hotel banquet department, school or hospital, or in the research and development department of a food manufacturer. Likewise, chefs rarely have much time to sort through the latest nutrition research studies or environmental analyses and understand how these further shape our understanding of chronic disease patterns and trends, or global sustainability imperatives.  Tomorrow Tastes Mediterranean provides the needed bridge between two types of knowledge creation: scientific and culinary.

In practice, this means that the 2020 virtual conference and the 2020-2021 digital magazine specifically focused on translation—the culinary and business operationalization—of the Mediterranean Diet, from dishes and menus to financial models and marketing campaigns. In a time of uncertainty, when food professionals need to worry not just about food safety but the safety of their customers more generally, and when public health imperatives are ever greater because of COVID-19 concerns, when our industry has been decimated by closures and limited business models, and when supply chain strains are so acute, providing healthy, sustainable, and delicious menus has taken on a new urgency. Throughout the magazine and recording, acclaimed chefs, culinary experts, business owners, and foodservice operators share the innovative strategies they have used in their kitchens to advance plant-forward Mediterranean cooking with clear takeaways to ensure you’ll be able to develop similar, successful paths in your own companies and organizations.

The traditional Mediterranean Diet received the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage designation in 2010. Even if it has been formally codified only for 60 or so years, it is one of the world’s oldest ways of eating, reflecting a region rich in customs and abundant in health-promoting ingredients and preparation methods. How do we, how do you make this relevant for today’s diners? How do we connect the Mediterranean Diet to other global food trends—and other models of healthy, sustainable, culturally-based cooking? How do chefs and manufacturers expand the kind of foods customers think about when they hear “Mediterranean Diet” or “Mediterranean-inspired dietary patterns”? How do chefs and manufacturers leverage the Mediterranean Diet to engage their customers and nudge them towards healthier, more sustainable food choices? Tomorrow Tastes Mediterranean 2020 will take on these questions and more, to help attendees identify and develop the craveable, healthy, and sustainable foods of, yes, tomorrow.

_________________________________

2020 TOMORROW TASTES MEDITERRANEAN: A VIRTUAL CONFERENCE

All times CET (- 6 for EST, -9 for PST)

17h-17h15