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January 28, 2017
In Uncategorized

A kitchen full of possibilities

Hi Reader,

Today my classmates and I started our journey. The first destination was Amsterdam in Netherlands. A city full of life and plenty of multiculturalism were everything should be discovered cycling and chatting with locals.

Our first day I went with my classmates to an inspiring place called Kitchen Republic, were the founders Emma Veerhuis and Bart-Jan Veldhuizen, told us more about their motivations and goals for opening this space which basically serves as commercial shared kitchen for entrepreneurs in the food sector looking for test their ideas during the early stage of their product’s development without invest in industrial appliances, storage rooms, etc.

Baked in Amsterdam is one of the enterprises born at this ecosystem. Peter Ong, his founder shared with us many of his high quality products, how his venture story and how it’s evolved during he joined Kitchen Republic. I was amazed by his passion and determination and of course be his delicious patisserie products.

We met also to Chef Justin Brown, who delights us with a very flavorful lunch. He shares with us the advantages of being part of the beneficiaries of Kitchen Republic, because allows him to operate without the investment of a permanent kitchen in a restaurant, fact that gives him a larger freedom compare with other ventures in the restaurant sector. Also he told us this choice give him the opportunity to explore wide of different menus and be loyal to his creativity.

Finally at this session, we met Maartje Nelisen from the food line up enterprise, who shared with us several of her company projects. I honestly was captivated by the one called “Meet your dinner” where people is able to know more about the life of the animal who produced the food commodity they are consuming. This initiative seems to raise awareness into consumers which it might be one driver to switch to healthier and alternative sources of protein.

Thanks to Kitchen Republic and his associated by this incredible experience.

Sincerely,

Yhosemar

 

January 28, 2017
In Uncategorized

This is the beginning

Hi Reader,

Recently I started a journey around the globe. The motivation that brings me in this adventure is discover innovative researchers, products, techniques and visions that might help me to answer my challenge:

How to encourage people to foster plant based diets and include novel food sources of proteins (like insects) in their daily life?

I will be 60 days around the globe trying to find answer around this issue that may be determinant for our future. If  you want to be part of this story just keep reading the following publications.

Sincerely,

Yhosemar

January 27, 2017
In Uncategorized

Strooop! by Chloé Rutzerveld

Everybody knows the Dutch delicacy stroopwafel. Thanks to Starbucks we can find it everywhere.  According to Wikipedia it was first made in Gouda around 18th century by a baker using leftovers from the bakery, such as breadcrumbs, which were sweetened with syrup.

But Chloé’s Strooop! is different.  It is the first plant-based stroopwafel made from vegetables.
Each waffle is made out of 100 grams of carrot, beetroot or celeriac.

Strooop! is a perfect showcase of zero waste snack. It is made from misfit, weird, damaged or leftover vegetables after cleaned and pressed.

Around %78 of the vegetable is juice and the rest is fiber. Syrup is made produced out of its juice. And with the remaining fiber is transformed into a waffle with some help from buckwheat flour, rapeseed oil.

With Strooop!, they give new life to vegetable by-products as a modern version of the typical Dutch delicacy.

Entirely plant-based, gluten free, no sugar, no food colouring and great source of dietary fiber.

Hope to see more of zero waste snacks around the globe.

To take a look at Chloé Rutzerveld works click here.

January 27, 2017
In Uncategorized

Netherlands – How to shake out the legacy of war

During the II World War, in the winter of 1944-45, Netherlands suffered what has been called The Hunger winter. The famine affected 4.5 million people and brought to dead around 20,000 people. The starvation period ended with the liberation by Aliies in May 1945.

When the war ended, the Dutch government boosted the economy recovery through intensive investments. It helped to create large-scale farms merging smaller pre-war family farms. The subsidies helped farmers to invest in mechanized equipment and, therefore, increase the productivity. Today the Netherlands not only export more food than what consumed domestically, but they are the second global food exporter.

This kind of food production, unfortunately, increases the food standardization and does not allow any biodiversity. That’s why no one is able to answer to the question: “which is the typical Dutch dish?”. Hopefully Netherlands did not stop to the second post-war, but is becoming a land of food innovation, food waste re-usage, gourmet food.

It is a land where kitchens are becoming a service: Kitchen Republic is a Food Business Incubator which aims to lower barriers to entry for local food startups with innovative ideas and products. What they provide to startups is an unique ecosystem, a network, constant inspiration, test opportunities and feedback). Basically the idea is to provide the physical platform, a shared commercial kitchen that helps local food producers and food startups in general to enter in the business without doing the investment of a private kitchen, therefore reducing cost and risk. Moreover, they work also with big food companies offering, similar to a pilot plant, the possibility to fast develop a new product and test it in the local market.

It is a land where restaurants and hospitals share the same space. This is the case of Maison van den Boer. Low quality food in hospital canteen are a waste for several reasons: leftovers, patients dissatisfaction, staff hospitals have to hire. They decided to send to the hospital the food ready, which doesn’t need to be set or manipulate, can directly go to the hospital pantries. Hospitals don’t need employees anymore because someone belonging to Maison’s staff will bring food to the patients 6/7 times per day offering a choice of 3 alternatives. Assortment means temptation for the patient, that in this way, is tempted to eat, with a huge boost to his recovery. The concept is to join gastronomy and hospitality in order to bring high quality food and beverage everyday to hospital patients, but they did some steps further. They understood how just 5-6% of sick people are in hospital, the rest are recovered at home or waiting for entering the hospital and also these people need healthy food, therefore they are developing food delivery to these new possible clients. In order to enter in contact and engage these people they can rely on their foundation, born in order to fund the research through the university. Not only this, they are expanding their Food for Care model to other customers segments: with Food for Fun and Food for Sport, they aims different target (amusement parks visitors and professional athletes) but the mission is still the same, serving good food.

It was the first time that I saw a tangible recognition of the role of the food as fundamental in healthcare. These companies don’t follow any new trend or change their nature just to increase their revenues, they simply do their business, but doing it, they make the world a better place.

And the world is what I am going to discover in this Global Mission.

January 26, 2017
In Uncategorized

Who is Shirley, what is her challenge?

What does auditing business has to do with culinary, how can an airline security experience help in the kitchen and where do information systems can come in for a different culinary approach?  Let me introduce myself, who did all of the above just to find my passion in the kitchen.

This is Shirley Kaston. Thanks to my curiosity I have a diverse background. My professional journey started when I received my degree in Economics. I was pretty good with numbers and had an eye for detail. Auditing was my thing. But I was born into an age that technology was the key, so I felt the urge dig deeper. I had to learn and become proficient in that field. That unsatisfied eagerness to learn followed by my Masters Degree in Information Systems. But all these educational efforts had to be financed. This is where my career in airline security came in. I was in my mid twenties and sleepless nights at the airport didn’t seem so bad to support my education and pay the bills. After three long years, I ran out of gas. My energy levels started to decline. But why? Was it malnutrition? What should I eat? How should I eat? Where were these things coming from anyway? As soon as these questions popped up in my head, guess what happened? I was at Culinary Arts Academy of Istanbul for my culinary training in 2012. All along the way I knew and dreamed that all these would come together for me to shape my future and hopefully the whole humankind.

I am currently studying in Food Innovation Program Master Program. My previous work experiences as a finance and administrative manager and an airline security officer / guard equipped me with different aspects of business and management skills, all of which i find them to be very useful in the kitchen as well. Through working as a finance / administrative manager I have a solid understanding of the stock systems, cost analysis of the product and pricing structures. Working at airline security, I have gained remarkable experience on direct human relations, service to guests, decision-making and working under pressure.

My personal interest and my challange for Food Innovation Program Global Mission is ‘Food Waste’.

My research will be focused on:

Phase 1,  perception of food waste in different cultures and re-branding. Discovering the showcases for food waste in different countries. 

Phase 2, how to teach the use of leftovers, damaged produce etc. in daily life.

Phase 3, dispersion of food waste along distribution and production process, development of new techniques to reduce