With just 5 years left to achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals, we have seen countless communities’ resilience tested by climate disruptions, conflict, and economic pressures. In parallel, we’ve seen the Chefs’ Manifesto movement continue to grow louder and more connected than ever before!
In 2025, the Chefs’ Manifesto network showcased the power of chef-led advocacy for community impact, biodiversity protection, and climate action, demonstrating that lived experience, shared knowledge, and collective voice can strengthen food systems and drive real change.
Chefs like you have stepped forward not only as storytellers of food, but as champions of food systems transformation. You have cooked, convened, taught, re-imagined supply chains, designed nutrition-centred menus, and challenged wasteful practices at scale. In kitchens, on farms, in UN dialogues, on policy stages, and in communities, you’ve demonstrated that good food can inform, accelerate, and humanise food systems change. In doing so, you have showcased how chefs can help bridge the gap between growers and eaters – a position so unique and important!
As we reflect on 2025, the stories captured here are a resource for changemakers everywhere, and underscore a central through-line of the Chefs’ Manifesto: hope is action. The work done this year is a hopeful launchpad for deeper collaboration and wider mobilisation of food champions across the globe.
And so, let the future of food remain a place where we can continue to invest our hope, with chefs leading, convening, and courageously imagining solutions for people and the planet.
1900+
Chefs
95
Countries
35+ International events in 2025
Chefs as Community Organisers
This year the Chefs’ Manifesto showcased the power of community for nutrition, access and culture. Why? Because everyone everywhere deserves nutritious food that is affordable and accessible, and food systems transformation is strengthened through collaboration with those it serves. Check out how the network mobilised to connect, educate, and collaborate with community this year!
Chefs’ Manifesto Community Kitchens Action Hub
Community kitchens nourish connection, create opportunities, and build resilience. They act as vital hubs for empowering local producers and promoting food justice by teaching sustainable, healthy eating, and shifting towards local food sovereignty. From funding to the training and development for young chefs, the first Chefs’ Manifesto Community Kitchens Action Hub workshopped ideas to support and sustain community kitchens, with a special focus on resourcing the next generation. See more here!
Chefs’ Manifesto Chicago Action Hub
“Chefs have a powerful role to play in transforming food systems, not just through what we cook, but through what we say, what we support, and how we connect our customers to the real people and stories behind each ingredient.” – Chef Rick Bayless
The first Chefs’ Manifesto Action Hub in the Windy City was all about connection, gathering chefs and food leaders for a deep dive on how our kitchens connect local-to-global food systems.
From digesting big challenges with Ambassador Ertharin Cousin and celebrating Chicago’s food equity movement, to exploring next-gen culinary education from Chicago Public Schools to training programs like Impact Culinary Training and strengthening chef-to-farmer relationships, every session was a reminder of the power chefs have to drive Good Food for All and shape equitable food systems.
Through exchanges with local farmers, food entrepreneurs, policy leaders and fellow chefs, we unpacked how our craft can influence behaviour change, build stronger relationships with producers, and make diverse, sustainable diets more delicious, accessible, and affordable for our communities.
Chefs as Educators: Investing in Livelihoods
These contributing articles showcase how culinary leadership can intersect with investment into livelihoods to drive good food for all. From Chef Joyce Gyebi empowering women and communities in Ghana through Culinary4SocialChange, to Chef Andy Pycroft revolutionising school food through chef training, to Grove and Meadow training chefs in Kenya with heritage skills, dive in to see how lived experience and collaboration is shaping the future of food systems and get inspired for how you can too.
Nourishing Change: Cooking Up Empowerment for Women and Communities in Ghana
Nourishing Change: Cooking Up Empowerment for Women and Communities in Ghana”
Chefs as Protectors of Biodiversity
Chefs are helping restore biodiversity to our plates by championing underutilised crops, indigenous knowledge, and climate-resilient ingredients. Beyond menu innovation, chefs continue to be part of driving the demand that strengthens farmer livelihoods and builds dietary diversity rooted in culture and sustainability. Here’s how the Chefs’ Manifesto network celebrated biodiversity in 2025!
Africa Food Systems Forum
Africa’s food systems hold biodiversity and agricultural heritage that are central to strengthening food systems worldwide. At the Africa Food Systems Forum in Dakar, Senegal, food champions Moyo Odunfa, Abiro Wisdom, Seyitan Aruna and Ndagou Ndiaye celebrated regional African cuisines and shared insights on indigenous crops and how we can drive and empower people to achieve Good Food For All. The Culinary masterclass’s included:
🫘Lost & Forgotton Crops featuring underutilised African indigenous crops like fonio, bambara groundnut & baobab.
🌾Fortified Foods & Wholegrains featuring high-iron beans, African cereal grains, and a jollof competition!
From masterclasses to jollof competitions, learn more about what the chefs got up to by visiting the posts below!
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Taste of London
The annual Taste of London event creates a vital space for chefs to educate and connect with the public, sharing knowledge and prompting festival goers to consider their food choices.
Chef Palmiro Ocampo joined the Taste Sessions and took the opportunity to share the philosophy behind Cocina Óptima, a cooking method rooted in sustainability, flavour, and full ingredient usage. Through stories and food, he introduced underutilised Peruvian ingredients to explain how honouring every part of the food can transform nutrition and reduce waste, and creating:
🫛Pea toast, using the whole snap pea, together with sustainably sourced mackerel bones from for increased nutrition.
Chef Vanshika Bhatia used also joined the taste sessions using indigenous grains, legumes, spices, and traditional techniques, all part of India’s vast, climate-resilient food heritage, to craft dishes such as:
🍄🟫Wild Mushroom Pepper Fry with Kerala Red Rice – a bold, aromatic stir-fry using foraged mushrooms, freshly crushed black pepper, and native curry leaves.
🌾Barnyard Millet Chaat Papdi – a crunchy, tangy street food twist made with ancient millet flour, legumes, and vibrant chutneys.
Chefs as Taste Makers: Using Ingredients Grown with Respect for the Earth and its Oceans
This year chefs shared their passion for biodiverse, resilient food. Young taste-makers Aditya Nair, Moyo Odunfa and Sohini Banerjee, crafted menus that went beyond simply sourcing locally, but celebrated native varieties, traditional breeds, and cultural heritage. Chef Kiran Jethwa showcased the richness of Kenyan culinary heritage through nutritious, locally-sourced ingredients at CGIARs science week. Through creativity and advocacy, these chefs are not just cooking with biodiversity but shaping a better future for food.
42 recipes were submitted through our monthly thematic opportunities and #SustainableSundays campaign open call. Eager to submit one of your recipes to inspire for a better food future? Submit now!
Chefs as Advocates for Climate Action
From sourcing climate-smart ingredients to reducing kitchen waste, chefs have the unique opportunity to translate complex environmental challenges into everyday, practical choices that resonate with growers, eaters and policymakers alike. Advocating for the climate was a big part of 2025!
London Climate Action Week
Food sits at the heart of the climate conversation, shaping how we grow, source, cook, and eat in a rapidly changing world. During London Climate Action Week, the Chefs’ Manifesto partnered with BaxterStorey to spotlight the role of chefs and plant-forward food in driving climate action. Through live cooking demonstrations, conversations, and shared storytelling, the collaboration demonstrated how accessible, delicious food can inspire climate-conscious choices at scale, from professional kitchens down to everyday meals
Check out how Chefs Palmiro Ocampo, Vanshika Bhatia, Cristina Bowerman and Arthur Potts Dawson joined BaxterStorey to help drive their sustainable nutrition mission.
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Chefs Stirring Change – Learning Top Tips from the Kitchen
In the heart of London, local chefs brought their top tips for driving food systems transformation.
👨🌾 Bettina Campolucci-Bordi – Subscribe to a farmers box.
🥚Arthur Potts Dawson – Choose eggs that come from systems that improve biodiversity & animal welfare.
🫂Ebenezer Sogunro – To incentivise a team to work together towards a common goal.
♻️Maali Khan-Stokes – Don’t shop visually! Select the fruits & veg that look wonky.
🌏Miles Kirby – Be open to learning new and better ways of cooking.
🫘Ali Honour – Flip the plate & make a veg the star ingredient
🍽️ Sam Ratanji – Make your plate colourful!
🍠Jon Lawson – Sofrito is a simple technique that helps unlock richer, more nutritious meals
Chefs as Story Shapers: Valuing Natural Resources
From Chef Chris Locke’s zero-waste kitchen methodology to Chef Emile van der Staak challenging conventional agriculture with food forests, these articles share practical insights and real-world examples of how culinary leadership can reduce environmental impact while strengthening resilience across the food chain.
Restaurants as Clean Water Conduits
Restaurants as Clean Water Conduits By Chefs’ Manifesto #foodchampion Chris Locke
As we move into 2026, the Chefs’ Manifesto Website and Instagram will continue to be a resource and hub for inspiration, learning, and action – amplifying chefs’ voices, sharing practical ways to get involved and connecting a growing community committed to Good Food for All.
Help shape what comes next by completing a brief survey and sharing what you’re taking into 2026. If you’re working on a food systems project, exploring new ideas, and want to collaborate or be featured, we’d love to hear from you.
Food remains a powerful source of hope, connection, and possibility.United by a shared commitment to people and planet, chefs are not just responding to the moment, but helping shape a more just, resilient food future. Let’s enter 2026 together, with a renewed sense of purpose and commitment to driving impact and transforming our world.