A Challenge to All Chefs on World Food Day
16 of October 2022 – Every year, one third of all the food produced on our planet is wasted while 1 billion people go undernourished and another 1 billion go hungry. You’ve probably already heard many other scary statistics on how much water, energy, and land resources are used in producing our food, and how damaging this can be for our planet and climate. But simply imagine accepting a delivery in your kitchen, tossing 1/3 of it right into the trash, and leaving your customers unfed. We would never accept that in our kitchens, so why do we accept it in our food systems?
On this World Food Day, we challenge you to be a part of the movement towards more equitable, sustainable food systems. There are so many ways to get involved:
- Earn a digital badge in sustainable foodservice practices with Worldchefs free Sustainability Education for Culinary Professionals course, now available on the Worldchefs Academy platform www.worldchefsacademy.com;
- Dive deeper into topics that matter most to you and learn from culinary professionals who are also on their journey toward a more conscious kitchen by checking out episodes of our Feed the Planet webcast, Sustainability Around the World;
- Download this year’s International Chefs Day toolkit to get ready to teach kids about healthy and sustainable eating habits on 20th October;
- Or even just spend some time today learning about the history of where you live, the traditional crops, where your ingredients are coming from, and finding some regional farmers you can work with to source locally for your kitchen.
We know chefs have many pressures on them, but we’re still asking you to do more. It’s so important to take action in whatever way you can. Things are shifting, and we can see this becoming more and more important in chefs lives. That is why we’re always working on new resources so that chefs can incorporate sustainability into life-long learning and self-development.
Can you feel the momentum? Together, we can drive change in kitchens across the globe, change the course for the future, and use the power of the white jacket to help change the world.
From our kitchen to yours,
Thomas A. Gugler, Worldchefs President
Chris Koetke, Worldchefs Feed the Planet Chairman
Ragnar Fridriksson, Worldchefs Managing Director
