Food for change

Massimo Bottura is more than a Michelin star-winning chef. Together with Lara Gilmore, he also founded Food for Soul, a non-profit organisation seeking to reduce food waste through inclusion.

On the occasion of Expo 2015 in Milan and working in concert with Caritas Ambrosiana, Massimo Bottura opened Refettorio Ambrosiano, a new kind of community canteen where chefs from around the world cooked nutritious meals for socially vulnerable guests using surplus ingredients recovered from the Expo's pavilions. The project's success led Bottura to found Food for Soul in 2016 aimed at replicating the model in other communities. Since then, Refettorio Gastromotiva in Rio de Janeiro, Refettorio Felix in London, Social Tables in Modena, Bologna and Naples, and Refettorio Paris in the French capital have all opened their doors. Further canteens are planned across the globe.

This is the ninth essay in the Big Ideas series created by the European Investment Bank.