Social InnovationGastronomy, the relationship of each society with its way of eating, means one of the great intangible heritages that most cultures treasure as a safeguard of human activity. This wealth, most of the time unnoticed by the society that undergoes rhythms of great intensity, is of great value and tells a lot about the nature of a certain society; we are what we eat, we eat what we are. The way in which we produce, transform, acquire and eat food clearly outlines the relationship we maintain with the land and the values on which our food, commerce, health, or social justice itself is governed. While for one part of the planet eating is an almost unconscious, accessible, and almost anecdotal act, for a large part it is a daily challenge.
Throughout our professional careers, we have been fortunate to work across the entire food value chain in order to precisely attribute added value to everything that passes through our stoves. The speeches of haute cuisine are based on the effort of all the actors that make up the gastronomic constellation of each region. From the producers of ingredients of agro-livestock origin to the most advanced examples in food biotechnology, the food system forms an ecosystem as rich as it is sensitive. Knowing the relationships that exist between these products and consumers allows the design of food strategies for purposes associated with values in force on the planet.
What if instead of the challenge or the problem, the food chain were the solution? It turns out that we have operated in a region of the planet in which we not only eat but also enjoy it and also boast of the wealth that gastronomy means for our economic partners. But it turns out that there are places that, even having a culinary history as rich and complex as ours, have yet to take advantage of their great development potential and this opportunity can serve to generate development and social integration. Together with ALC, Imago can design and participate in social innovation platforms, diagnoses, and creative exercises for the development of food initiatives at different levels; primary, secondary, and tertiary sectors from the gastronomic perspective. These exercises seek to design, together with the beneficiary communities of the co-creation exercises, transformation and integration strategies where people and systems generate dynamic prosperity.
Imago has developed together with ALC and the UNDP (United Nations development program), two projects for open innovation platforms in southern Thailand (Yala, Narathiwat, and Pattani provinces) and in northern Pakistan (Gilgit Baltistan -Karakoram-). In these projects, Imago has developed a battery of prototype proposals or initiatives through which to promote the food systems of both regions, integrating different levels of participation established by the ALC strategy (community, small, medium, and large scale, services and regulation). This has caused, for example, the redesign of the space of the municipal market of the city of Yala (Yala City Market). On the other hand and in collaboration with the NGO Entreculturas y el Ccaijo (Apostolic Work of the Society of Jesus, Province of Peru), with the help of La Caixa Foundation, Imago is developing an analysis and inventory of the gastronomic heritage of the districts of Ocongate, Ccatca, and Marcapata in the Andean zone of Peru. The purpose of this analysis is to work on strategies to promote the gastronomy and cheeses of the region. For this, an inventory, contrast, and co-creation program is followed that will conclude with the development of strategies on which to support socio-economic improvements in the region.
