What if we could build a global movement?
Food as a Force for Systemic Change: Reflections from the DELA Interview
Food is more than nourishment - it’s one of the most powerful connectors we have. It brings people to the table across cultures, across backgrounds, and across differences. In the latest Ashoka DELA report, I had the chance to reflect on how food—when used with intention—can serve as a powerful entry point for social and systems transformation.
Through my work with the Social Gastronomy Movement, a global network of change-makers in over 80 countries, I’ve witnessed how food can unlock trust, dignity and connection in communities facing deep challenges. But more than that, I’ve come to see that systemic change cannot happen in isolation. It requires actors from all sectors - civil society, business, academia and beyond, to work together not just in parallel, but in true co-creation.
In the DELA report, I advocate for deeper collaboration between social entrepreneurs and corporations. There is enormous untapped potential in this relationship, especially when corporates are willing to move beyond transactional CSR models and instead embrace long-term partnerships rooted in shared values and mutual learning.
We must design for impact at the root level: not just treating the symptoms of broken food systems, but collectively addressing the structures, narratives, and relationships that keep inequalities in place. That’s where innovation and regeneration begin, not in silos, but in ecosystems.
At The Regen Studio, this belief in ecosystem-based transformation is what guides our work. Whether through campaigns like Worlds Together with Heineken or shaping convenings like the EHL Open Innovation Summit, the goal is the same: to bring together unlikely allies to co-create bold solutions that regenerate systems, not just sustain them.
If we can dream it together, we can build it together. And food, in all its universality and intimacy, is one of the best tools we have to do just that.
Read the full article here.
