Summer Fancy Food Show: Day 3

This year’s Summer Fancy Food Show has drawn to a close. We’re still getting over our food coma and reeling over all the innovations and delectable treats we came across over the past several days.

Monday’s sofi Awards ceremony was treated to a powerful keynote by renowned chef José Andrés, who spoke about his path to the culinary world and his romance with food—not just its quality, but the cultural, emotional and very personal experience people have with food. This widespread passion is no more apparent than at the Fancy Food Show, where people share what is often their life’s work, sometimes an abrupt career change brought on by an enduring passion for making good food with meaning.

Andrés also spoke about the current social impact of food and the responsibility producers have, whether in choosing to use responsible ingredients and be fully transparent in their process, or in what they do with their success to effect social change. Incorporating such goals right into their business plans are companies like Aiva Naturals, which makes mouthwatering cookies using organic, fair trade ingredients, and Turbana, which makes addictive plantain chips while fostering community growth and progress in Colombian villages where the plantains are grown.

Whether pouring their hearts into a great-grandparent’s recipe or pushing for social change in food production, the people behind specialty foods all have stories to tell. And we’re all ears (and mouths).—Eva Meszaros

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