Délice Network, in partnership with five vocational cooking institutes from Barcelona (Spain), Bordeaux (France), Gaziantep (Turkey), Malmö (Sweden), and Torino (Italy), is proud to present the international project “The Future in our Kitchens: Social & Sustainable Skills for Culinary Trainees,” co-financed by the European Union under the Erasmus+ program.
Future Kitchens aims to open the mindset of future cooks and food entrepreneurs through an international cooperation partnership between vocational culinary training institutes for the school year 2022-2023.
During a year-long collaboration, the partnership will actively cooperate in designing a joint training program (online) and an immersive training week in Barcelona to foster social and sustainable skills in their culinary practices.
While the restaurant industry has rebound after months of shutdown due to the pandemic, the sector is now suffering from the adverse effects of the labor shortage and difficulties in recruiting and retaining skilled workers. Paradoxically, youth is facing unprecedented challenges in entering professional lives. The restaurant industry is today not an attractive option for their career choice.
To deal with this significant paradox, the food service industry needs to become more attractive to young people, the pioneers of future changes, and the workers of tomorrow. Thus, cooking vocational education is a primary actor of this paradigm change and must offer engaging training programs that address the critical issues of fair and sustainable development, which are some main drivers of the life choices of today's young people.
Future Kitchens will foster cooperation between vocational institutes to offer engaging training programs that will address the critical issues of equitable and sustainable development through:
- Designing innovative training methods and formats and developing a digital culinary training program to transfer knowledge and good practices from global food experts to trainees.
- Addressing the key challenges significant for the youth today, including social consideration in the food service industry and sustainable practices in restaurant industry kitchens.
This project has received funding from the European Union under grant agreement no 2022-1-FR01-KA210-VET-000084565. This article does not reflect the opinion of the European Commission. The European Commission is also not responsible for any use that may be made of the information contained therein.