The Food Forever Experience
Design and management of an international event series to raise awareness of the importance of conserving crop and livestock diversity through the plate of food
Project Snapshot
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Team & Timeline
September 2017 - October 2020
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Role: Project Lead, Experience Design, Event and Project Management
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Team: Professional work in collaboration with Rodrigo Barrios, including support from the Crop Trust Communications team and several external partners
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Problem
How might we make the importance of food diversity resonate with global audiences and inspire action?
From 2017 to 2020, I led the communications work of the Food Forever Initiative, a campaign led by the Crop Trust to influence decision-makers and raise awareness about the importance of conserving the world’s agrobiodiversity. As the communications focal point, I was tasked with strategically communicating the value of our food diversity through the initiative.
CBS Coverage of the Food Forever Experience NYC
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Overview
Ag-ro-bi-o-di-ver-si-ty. Eight syllables long! My eyes glazed over while reading. As a fan of cooking shows, it struck me one day- the way you connect people to this complex topic is a simple plate of food. Working with the former Crop Trust Head of Communications, I explored everything from creating a cloud-based image recognition app called ‘What’s On Your Plate’ to staging food demos to amplify the connection people have to the diversity of our foods. Ultimately, these conversations culminated in a cooking challenge where chefs would be tasked to use diverse ingredients to create dishes that told these stories for us. Working closely with Google and other partners, we brought the first challenge - dubbed the Food Forever Experience - to life in Manhattan in late 2018.
The pilot event included ten innovative chefs making delicious dishes featuring uncommon ingredients for a group of 200+ media and influencers to showcase the power of food diversity, not only for agriculture but also for our palates. The event was covered in CBS Morning News as well as in other US media outlets and inspired participants to take action for conservation, laying the groundwork for many subsequent partnerships.
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Outcome & Impact
Based on the stream of positive responses, we turned the event into a series. I led ten events in eight countries over two years, bringing together thousands of influential leaders from media to top scientists to the President of Peru to drive awareness and action for conservation efforts.
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1,350 stakeholders engaged
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100+ ingredients showcased
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95 chefs cooking
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608% increase in Instagram followers
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45% increase in Twitter followers
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152% increase in Facebook followers
How We Got There
Working with the team, I explored ways we could creatively increase impact, prototyping everything from creating a cloud-based image recognition application called ‘What’s On Your Plate’ to creating a food origins series to staging food demos demonstrations, amplifying the connection people have to the diversity of our foods. Ultimately, these conversations and pilots culminated in a cooking challenge where chefs would be tasked to use diverse ingredients to create dishes that told these stories for us.
The first step was to do a landscape scan and identify stakeholders within our network who would be interested in working to bring such a campaign to life. After identifying a few chef champions and key organizational partners including Google, Tender Greens, and the Lexicon of Sustainability, we brought the first challenge to life - dubbed the Food Forever Experience - in Manhattan in late 2018. The pilot event included ten innovative chefs making delicious dishes featuring uncommon ingredients for a group of influencers to showcase the power of agrobiodiversity, not only for agriculture but also for our palates.
The result was a room full of nearly 200 media and influencers who left with full stomachs and a desire to advocate and take action to help conserve the diversity of our foods. The event was covered in CBS Morning News as well as in other US media outlets, including Grub Street, the Farm Report, and Edible Manhattan. Coverage views were estimated to exceed 250,000.
Shortly after the event and based on a stream of positive responses, we decided to make this event into a series, resulting in events in nine more cities in 2019 and one in 2020 involving hundreds of stakeholders, including Heads of State.
The Process
At the start of the Food Forever Initiative, our team focused on video outreach, securing a high-level address from the Chair of the Initiative, the Former President of Mauritius, and the Crop Trust’s Global Patron, HRH, the Prince of Wales. These videos were shared via press releases and disseminated to a list of top-tier media outlets. We also focused on developing policy briefs showcasing the importance of conserving crop diversity for climate change adaptation. Yet, impact and reach remained minimal.
The proposal for a cloud-based image recognition application called ‘What’s On Your Plate’
Watch highlights from some of our most notable experiences
Project Management
As the project lead, I had the unique opportunity to shape and lead each of these Experiences from the outset, learning through trial and error along the way. To achieve impact, the participant experience had to be incredible from the moment guests entered the door to the moment they left, requiring an immense amount of coordination, creative work, problem-solving and analytical thinking. I oversaw and managed all aspects of each Experience, which involved wearing many hats and a lot of ambiguity - the part I loved most about my job.
Securing the event and identifying the location
The location needed to serve our initiative’s wider goals in terms of outreach and support for conservation efforts. After the initial pilot in NYC, I developed a proposal for Google to host two more Experiences in 2019 in Chicago and London offering in kind-support, which were both accepted.
Other events were organized with numerous partners in San José, Bonn, Cusco, Stockholm, Rome, Washington D.C., Long Pond and Abu Dhabi. Developing partnerships with organizations and individuals to enhance the impact of the event and reduce the resource burden was more often than not, the hardest part of the event planning, but also one of the most rewarding aspects. Below, I’ve showcased some of the most memorable experiences and partnerships over the series.
A selection of our partners. Left to right: Martin Vizcarra (President of Peru), Carla Hall (Chef & TV personality), Asma Khan (Chef & TV personality), Chellie Pingree (US Representative), Marcus Samuelsson (Chef & TV personality), Rick Bayless (Chef & TV personality), Haile Thomas (Founder, Happy), Thani Al Eyzoudi, (UAE Minister of Climate Change & Environment) and Michiel Bakker (Director, Global Workplace Programs, Google).
Stakeholder Management: Curating a group of notable influencers and thought-leaders
In order for an Experience to lead to results, we needed to curate a group of notable and innovative chefs, speakers, influential leaders, and media from the food and agriculture sector and beyond who had the ability to share the message of the importance of safeguarding crop diversity. What we realized is that our small team sitting in Bonn, Germany was never going to be successful in communicating this message to the world without expanding our network.
Through stakeholder mapping, I worked to identify key partners in each of our event locations, sometimes picking locations because of partners, and other times identifying the right stakeholder in a given location. By working closely with notable leaders, our network was greatly multiplied and this important message amplified.
Identifying ingredients that are currently underutilized but have the potential to be the next “quinoa”
Many of these ingredients were common in our past but fell out of favor for higher-yielding varieties. By using them and “rediscovering” them, they have the potential to play a bigger role in our food systems of the future. For the pilot Experience in New York City, my instinct was to play up the unique and unusual and push for a “wow” factor when selecting ingredients. Crickets, algae, salsify, elephants foot yam and others were the stars of the evening. While people were fascinated and the responses were positive, guests contacted us following the event asking where they could source these products and how they could use them more, following the event. Some of these ingredients, however, weren’t accessible in New York, and flying them in from Africa and Europe posed an environmental concern. It was a learning moment and pushed us to consider local ingredients for subsequent experiences that still fell outside of the culinary mainstream - but could be sourced locally, would support local economies, and could create demand for new supply chains following the events. For every experience, we crafted a narrative for each crop in an event guide, so participants could reference the ingredients and what is unique about them long after the event.
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I am sure you have heard the overwhelming praise for delivering such an impactful event, but I wanted to also weigh in. In my years at Whole Foods Market, I have had the opportunity to be a part of some crazy inventive and fun events, but your seminar by day and sampling/ networking by night was one of the best overall experiences I have had in my career.
Email from Executive at Whole Foods Market, Guest for the Food Forever Experience Chicago
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Branding
Working with our creative agency Cohere, I helped develop a logo and brand identity that would span multiple events if the pilot proved successful. For each subsequent Experience, I worked with them to maintain the integrity of the brand while pushing it and expanding it to reach new heights. Food Forever now has a notable brand, which is iconic and evokes emotion. While we highlighted the amount of diversity we’ve lost and why conserving these resources is so important, we placed the emphasis on what we still have left - making it a culinary and cultural celebration, inspiring people who interact with the brand to demand more diverse foods because they want the taste, unique properties or narrative that are behind each ingredient.
A) Diets on Display
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Creating thought-provoking installations that educate and inspire
The Food Forever Experience was born out of the need to make a complex, jargon-filled Sustainable Development Goal easy to understand and digestible, literally! I did this by working through the five senses. In these experiences, we also worked closely with artists to help communicate the importance of food diversity through illustrative pieces that make the participants think a bit deeper. It’s extremely difficult to keep attention spans focused in a three-hour event and by sharing this message using different mediums, the impact and emotional response were greater. See lettered examples below.
B) Declaration of 'Inter'dependence
For the Experience in New York City, we commissioned a local artist to paint two mannequins: one depicting a diverse diet and the other our standard diet, where just four crops make up 60% of daily calorie intake. The thinking behind this: people understand and pay more attention to issues they see as directly affecting them. By using a human mannequin, we were able to connect the larger message to the individual and encourage people to contemplate their eating habits and how it has a correlation to greater planetary health and food security. These mannequins traveled with us for several subsequent events.
Playing on the US Declaration of Independence, we created a Declaration of ‘inter’ dependence to highlight how interdependent we are when it comes to our food. While the hamburger may seem like an American dish, the ingredients all originated in other parts of the world: sesame seeds come from India; wheat: the Near East, Lettuce: the Mediterranean; pickles, cheese, and beef: South Asia, etc. This Declaration states that our food diversity is a global common good. By signing it, individuals pledge to advocate for greater conservation and use of these resources.
Top: I had a Declaration hanging on display as a modern scroll, as part of the London Experience. Laptops were arranged around the scroll for people to sign the Declaration. Middle: The Peruvian President and Vice President signed the Declaration during the Food Forever Experience Peru. Left: Working with web developers, I also put the Declaration on our website to encourage more signatories.
C) A Photo is Worth a 1000 Words
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In several Experiences, we’ve commissioned local artists to create thought-provoking installations for photo opportunities. The goal: guests take a photo and post it on their social media channels using our hashtag to build a bigger online following to continue generating awareness about the topic during and post-event. Top left: FFX letters made from diverse radicchio varieties for the London Experience. Top right: Seed art for the Experience in NYC. Bottom left: The step and repeat for the Food Forever Experience London. Bottom right: a piece crafted by Christophe Guassparo for the Chicago Food Forever Experience.
D) Cultural Connections
Food is more than sustenance. Different crops are culturally significant and contain memories that are important for us all as individuals. Given the timing of the London Experience around the holiday season, we asked chefs to create their favorite festive dishes and to share with the audience why the dishes were so important to them. Each speaker began the evening telling a short story about their favorite crop variety and why, and guests exchanged trading cards with their contact details and a recipe they wanted to share. It was an expansion of the typical business card and made the connections throughout the evening a bit more meaningful.
Creating a meaningful and educational run of show
While the food and chefs, art installations, branded ingredient booklets and other installations did a lot to educate, it was impossible to forget the power of simple communication. No matter how the experience was structured, we still needed a moment to address the audience and to explain why we were gathered and why it was so fundamentally important. Throughout the history of the series, I experimented with several approaches for structuring these educational talks.
Explore the gallery below to learn more about the various approaches from event to event.
Press Outreach
Achieving significant media outreach was critical for the success of each Experience. I worked with our PR firm to create targeted media lists, advisories and key messages and conducted interviews before, during and after each event. Securing media coverage of “awareness-raising” is no easy task, but we were fortunate to see coverage from almost every event.
The Former President of Peru, Martin Vizcarra, being interviewed at the Food Forever Experience Peru.
Thomasina Miers, Chef & Founder of Wahaca and BBC MasterChef winner being interviewed at the Food Forever Experience London.
Budget
Managing a complex budget under international procurement guidelines. The Food Forever Initiative was a campaign under the Crop Trust with a multi-million-dollar budget and a huge mandate. At the same time, it was part of a non-profit international organization, which is audited by donor governments (Netherlands, Switzerland, Germany, and Norway). Therefore all spending had to be done consciously and in accordance with our procurement framework. We had a minimal budget dedicated to each Experience which covered hard costs such as food and travel. Yet these experiences offered immense opportunities for being creative. I fully understood the value of art installations and branded moments in enhancing communication and impact, yet had to justify such expenses to a donor, which often could be extremely challenging. Therefore each event budget was carefully crafted, and developing partnerships and in-kind support was key. I spent hours each week on the phone with chefs, artists, like-minded initiatives, and private companies explaining our work and developing partnerships that served their needs and ours. Each event was a unique puzzle, and I grew to excel in piecing things together to form a whole and identifying collaborations that served the needs of multiple stakeholders.
Leadership
The most important skill I took away from coordinating these Experiences was an affinity for leadership. The personal professional growth that I witnessed, as a result, has been tremendous. I’ve been asked to speak in front of 200 + guests with five minutes’ notice, welcome a Head of State, and put together a pile of 500 name tags - on some occasions, all in the same day. Effective leadership involves being willing to roll up your sleeves and get the job done regardless of the task at hand - whether that’s making important budget decisions or taking out the trash. I’ve grown to be respected by my peers and superiors for my work ethic and positive results, something that has boosted my confidence professionally and encouraged me to seek out higher leadership roles in the future
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