Last month I was lucky enough to go to Italy. I mean — food, wine, Italian summer vibes, what’s not to love?
But what did I really go for?
I received a scholarship through the Food Talent Camp, hosted by the European Institute of Innovation for Sustainability (EIIS) a program designed to support under-35s working in food and sustainability. (I scraped in at 34 and a few months. Basically a senior citizen by youth program standards.) Sponsored by Barilla and Lactalis, the program marked a return to what I’d call my educational home. EIIS has been a huge part of my transition from just being a chef to someone who can now speak policy, procurement, and waste frameworks but I can still kill it on the line on a busy Friday night.
But I didn’t just go for the summit. I wanted to understand how sustainability works at different levels from policy halls to prep benches.
So I called a few friends, sent a few emails, and added some stops: Slow Food International, the University of Gastronomic Sciences, and the Rome Sustainable Food Project.
Sustainability can feel like this big messy space:you’ve got the dreamers, the academics, the strategists, the money people, the doers. I wanted to understand how all of it connects. How does it get translated into how we build businesses, write menus, train staff and most importantly, how we actually cook and eat?
Big Ideas, Big Rooms
The EIIS Summit — Regenerative Futures: Our Actions, Our Future was held in partnership with IFAD and the European Parliament.
From the jump, the energy was strong: AI, circularity, regenerative systems, climate justice, multilateral partnerships. The room was curated with care from the UN to tech CEOs to national governments and the big ideas were landing hard.
But by the end of Day One, I found myself thinking: Who’s doing the doing? Who’s actually making this work in a restaurant, in a supply chain, in local councils, in businesses?
Don’t get me wrong, we need the big vision to even ask that question. But I kept circling back to one thought: How is this being translated into business models, education, customer experience and prep lists?
The Hallway Where It Was Happening
The next day, I found the hallway. Literally.
Just outside the main conference rooms, the Innovation Lab was quietly humming. It featured projects and businesses from all across Italy and this was no fluff zone. Each attendee got a few voting tokens to drop into the innovations they believed had the most potential to create impact.
There was everything from Brembo brake pads designed with circular economy principles to Will Media, who are translating complex sustainability topics for public understanding.
But the one that stopped me was Menz & Gasser Italia, a third-gen jam company using fruit seconds, upcycling peel waste, and sharing renewable energy infrastructure with their growers.
It wasn’t flashy. It was functional. It was relational. And it was working.
That’s when it clicked: The doers were here. They were just outside the panel rooms.
The Business of Compromise
After the summit came two days of case challenges with Barilla and Lactalis. These weren’t branding games they were operational dilemmas:
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How do we translate sustainability commitments and tell our story to consumers?
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How do we redesign packaging that protects the product and reduces impact?
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How do you track accurate data across thousands of farms?
It became painfully clear: Sustainability isn’t straightforward, It’s not black and white. It’s not a checkbox, and it’s not a one size fits all.
As Peter Hawkins said during his keynote the day before “We are in a polycrisis — a dark forest of complexity.”
Which means the food system is complex and it is intertwined with complex challenges. We need innovation in consciousness, culture, kitchens, and the way we define hospitality itself.
A Kitchen That Actually Works
I’d gone to Rome asking big questions. But the clearest answers came from a little kitchen in the American Academy.
At the Rome Sustainable Food Project, there were no laser sensors or blockchain pilots, no climate dashboards or carbon calculators. Just food — real food, cooked with clarity, rhythm, and intent.
This isn’t your standard kitchen. They cook for about 60 academics each day. No à la carte, no fixed menu, no frantic dinner rush. What arrives from the farmers is what’s on the menu.
Chef Fausto’s team trains young chefs through a six-month internship program focused on adaptive cooking and sustainable thinking. “Work with your farmer, not against them,” Fausto told me — and they live it. They visit their growers regularly. There’s even a photo of one of their multigenerational farmers hanging in the kitchen.
They don’t waste. They don’t overcomplicate. They just cook with what’s abundant — and the result? Easily the best food I ate in Italy.
No, this isn’t a traditional commercial model. But it’s proof that clear values, consistency, and a strong relationship with your supply chain can build a working system. Could a paying restaurant ditch the menu entirely? Probably not. But could we open up menus, to be flexible with supply, design dishes around abundance? Absolutely.
Sometimes sustainability isn’t about a glossy policy, but a system that works.
Up North: Slow Food and Chefs as Researchers
From Rome I headed to Bra/ Pollenza to visit the University of Gastronomic Sciences (UNISG) and connect with the Slow Food Cooks’ Alliance. This whole area, was deeply connected to their food, where it came from and how it was cooked.
UNISG was started as a joint initiative from Slow Food Alliance the world’s first university entirely dedicated to the interdisciplinary study of food. Now, 20 years on, it has taken on a life of its own. It was interesting. The highlight was the Pollenzo Food Lab a team of chefs researching food, circularity, shelf-life chefs as researchers, not something you see every day. What I witnessed was the multidisciplinary approach to food and food systems — chefs to botany is what made this school special.
Now I had one question: How can we implement this same approach of teaching and multidisciplinary learning into our apprenticeship program, so sustainable cooking becomes the norm?
That night, dining, the restaurant menus had icon systems flagging Slow Food–certified ingredients. Servers didn’t just carry plates — they told stories. Pricing wasn’t a battle because value was built into the experience.
And it struck me: Slow Food isn’t nostalgic. It’s strategic.
A system that has the potential to reduce impact, and a marketing asset. And it sells — if it’s been translated in the right way, tying back to the lesson on marketing taught at EIIS.
Final Word: Real Tools, Not Just Hope
Rome taught me a lot. But if I had to boil it down, here’s what I’m carrying forward — and what I hope more chefs start saying out loud:
1. Stop pretending it’s simple — but do make it manageable.
We’re in a polycrisis. Food, climate, inequality, waste — it’s all connected. Create your system. Choose what sustainability aspects you’re going to focus on in your restaurant , food waste, community connection, procurement. Write it down. Take small, measurable steps. Sustainability is complex but chefs we are trained to break down chaos into systems.
2. Learn the language of money.
As someone said at the summit: “If sustainability isn’t profitable, it won’t survive.” Rome Sustainable Food Project is a business. UNISG is a business. EIIS is a business. Our restaurants are businesses.
We can be climate-forward while making money. Waste tracking, smart ordering, portion control — these aren’t fluff. They’re margin-builders, and they have the potential to influence more restaurants to adapt more sustainable systems.
3. Cook with innovation.
Everyone at the summit talked about innovation like it lived in a lab. But chefs? We’ve always been innovating — or we’d get left behind.
Menu changes to reduce waste? That’s innovation. Building a dish around seasonality and supplier shortfall? That’s innovation.
We just haven’t claimed the word. Maybe it’s time we do.
4. Get out of the bubble.
If you’re only talking to other chefs, you’re not in the full conversation.
Talk to your farmer. Your bin guy. Your local culinary school. Your council. Your supplier rep.
Chefs are sitting at the intersection of culture, consumer, farmer and community — and we need to stop thinking we’re “just in the back of house” ; we are the change.
So where does change start?
Not in a policy document. Not in a LinkedIn post. Not even in a summit.
Change starts on the pass.
With what you buy. What you bin. What you teach your team. And what story your plate tells.
Hi, I’m Natalie Bolt, a chef, consultant, and co-founder of The Table Food Consultants. I’m based in Australia, where I work with hospitality teams to reduce waste, rethink procurement, and make sustainability something that actually fits into service , not just a checkbox on a clipboard.
After 17+ years in kitchens around the world, I now spend my time translating big sustainability ideas into real-life kitchen systems. Less buzzwords, more bin audits. Less glossy frameworks, more tools that work during a lunch rush.
You’ll find me at @natalie.bolt / @thetablefood or www.thetableconsultants.com —or probably somewhere reworking a menu and reminding someone what seasonal actually means. If you want to chat please reach out!
