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FOOD LAB 2024

On the initiative of Laurenz Werner, the second FoodLab is being implemented following the successful Mushroom Pre-Lab last year. Soil to Soul and nutrition researcher Dominik Flammer are responsible for the project. This project aims to create a holistic experience space in which the topic of nutrition can be viewed and experienced from new perspectives. The diverse range of courses and seminars on offer extends from mushroom cultivation to the use of pulses and the refinement of animal offal. Participants from both the professional and amateur sectors are addressed. Together with talented graduates from vocational schools, we will spend four weeks developing recipes and ideas on how to influence our diet in a pleasurable way. We will be working with existing products and ingredients that have either been forgotten or not yet discovered. These will then be made available to the public in various pop-ups and presented and tasted at themed dinners.

Dominik Flammer

11 workshops, 8 pop-up dinners, 13 experts, 10 talents, 4 weeks, 3 focus topics - that's FoodLab 2024

What is our goal?

The core intention of FoodLab 2024 is to encourage people to reflect on meat consumption and at the same time present practicable alternatives. We want to enable a reduction without demanding a complete renunciation. This is happening against the backdrop of high meat consumption in Switzerland. By promoting the diversity of plant-based products and optimizing the use of existing meat resources, we are contributing to the development of sustainable diets. With the FoodLab, we want to sustainably improve the opportunities for agriculture to make a name for itself with local and sustainably grown and bred products. By connecting chefs with producers, daring to try new things and setting new trends that make our food tastier and more varied.

Why do we work with young chefs?

A special focus is on working with young talents from the catering industry. They are offered the opportunity to approach the topic of sustainability by allowing them to experiment with alternative ingredients in a creative and free environment. This approach should not only lead to new recipes that support a sustainable diet, but also position the young chefs as the influencers of tomorrow.

What are the Pop-Up Dinners?

The Pop-Up Dinners, which take place as part of the Food Lab, serve as a dynamic platform to present these innovative concepts and recipes to a wider audience. Through collaboration with renowned guest chefs, eight specific events are organized that not only bring the new culinary ideas to life, but also promote dialogue and interest in more sustainable ways of eating.

The 2024 theme: Beuschel, Bohne, Birkenpilz

Offal, pulses and mushrooms are the focus of this year's FoodLab. Because we are convinced that pulses and mushrooms can influence our diet in a meaningful and, above all, creative and tasty way.

Mushrooms

Mushrooms are the secret stars of every kitchen. Because of their variety of flavors, their texture and not least their limited availability, they are part of the rare delicacies. Thanks to a large number of cultivated mushrooms and a growing number of mushroom growers, they are becoming increasingly important across the entire culinary landscape.

The first FoodLab MushRoom in 2023 brought together a wealth of existing knowledge. We would now like to combine this with other sustainable trends and offer our young chefs a platform to experiment with this newly emerging regional diversity.

Pulses

Whether yellow or chickpeas, broad peas or wing beans - all of these pulses have great potential that is far from being fully exploited by the food service industry and consumers. The plant roots make an important contribution to soil quality by forming a symbiosis with nodule bacteria, which bind nitrogen from the air and make it available to the plants.

Giblets

Everyone has long been familiar with the nose-to-tail principle. However, this is rarely implemented in the wider gastronomy sector. With the principle “Meat yes! - Animals less!”, we are working with our young chefs to find ways to make exciting and attractive offal dishes palatable to the carnivorous majority again.

Because only if we really use everything from the animal will we one day slaughter fewer animals - without having to give up meat completely.