This year the topic of food security and food safety has been on everyone’s mind - and rightly so. In an ever-changing world, we're in the perfect position as a society to shift and build a better future. There is more awareness around food safety, sustainability and nutrition and this year's Expo in Milan is up and running with the theme “Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life.” The Expo Milano 2015 is a six-month international event that brings together experts, artists, entrepreneurs, researchers and chefs from around the world.
Future Food District at Milan Expo 2015 by MIT
The theme lends itself to being able to guarantee a healthy food environment for all people of the world and aims to open up dialogue around the problems of nutrition and resources on our planet. Through the use of technology, we are at a point where we can track and ensure access to safe food for all people of the world and in to coordinate and better our relationship with food. The Expo Milano 2015 is just that: an opportunity for organizations and companies from all over the world to showcase the best of their technology in an effort to “guarantee healthy, safe and sufficient food for everyone, while respecting the Planet and its equilibrium.”
Through working with traditional cultural values and using emerging technology, the Expo aims to find the interconnectivity between the old and the highlight the changes that our world is experiencing. According to the Expo’s site,
“Expo Milano 2015 provides an opportunity to reflect upon, and seek solutions to, the contradictions of our world. On the one hand, there are still the hungry (approximately 870 million people were undernourished in the period 2010-2012) and, on the other, there are those who die from ailments linked to poor nutrition or too much food (approximately 2.8 million deaths from diseases related to obesity or to being overweight in the same period).“
These changes are rapidly taking place, creating a much-needed dialogue and encouraging sustainability is a must for our world. Ideally, the goal is to create a balance between the availability and the consumption of resources.
With over 140 countries from around the world participating and an anticipated 20 million visitors, this event is a platform to generate awareness – and a necessary one. As we've outlined in several of our other blog posts, technology is becoming a mainstay in our restaurant industry and the time for innovation is here. Included in this year's Expo is an entire pavilion dedicated to using technology to explore the different, and varied, interactions between people and food. It's main goal: a solid information network where we're able to interact efficiently with products and producers "in order to develop a greater awareness of what we consume."
Interested in learning more? Check out the Expo 2015 site and get involved in the discussion surrounding food production and sustainability. The Expo runs until October 3rd this year.
