Aside from the food festivities and frivolities, there is a serious side to the ongoing Copenhagen Cooking & Food Festival as industry professionals will be using the occasion to get together to discuss the future sustainability of the planet.

Over 120 decision-makers from 15 countries will tomorrow (August 25) descend on City Hall to attend the official opening dinner of Better Food for More People, which will then continue on August 26 with an international summit at Christiansborg to address the challenge of producing enough food from our planet to feed its ever-increasing population and other related problems and innovations.

Participants will include Esben Lunde Larsen, the minister for the environment and food, along with representatives from the United States Department of Agriculture, China National Centre for Food Safety Risk Assessment and Nestlé Nordics.

The ‘Davos for food’
“We have to improve public health across national borders as more and more people move from rural to urban areas and therefore move further away from where their food originates,” said Larsen.

“In particular, we have to begin at an early stage by allowing children and young people opportunities to experience and work with food and to learn how good-quality produce is produced.”

Taking the form of an annual event, the summit will be a springboard to making Copenhagen the ‘Davos for food’ – referring to how the Swiss ski resort has become the preferred host of the annual World Economic Forum.

“We have great expectations of the summit, which will result in a charter of recommendations for how the international community can do more to ensure better food for more people through gastronomy,” added Larsen.

Information about the program can be found at mfvm.dk.