Barilla Center for Food & Nutrition The Barilla Center for Food & Nutrition (BCFN) is a think tank and change vehicle that serves to gather and analyze the best knowledge from all over the world on the topics of diet and nutrition in relation to people, the environment, science and the economy and present solutions to help deal with the food challenges of the near future. There are four areas of interest and work: • Food for Sustainable Growth, implications of the environmental impact on the agroindustrial sector; • Food for All, implications associated with food supply chain management to promote access to food across the world; • Food for Health, implications that link diet to people’s state of health and wellbeing; • Food for Culture, implications that link food to the traditions, eating habits and religions of different populations. The objectives The Barilla Center for Food & Nutrition adopts a rigorous, multidisciplinary approach to all its activities, the aim being to: • listen to current and emerging needs of society in the world of nutrition and diet; • pinpoint the fundamental issues regarding people, the environment, science and the economy; • collate and analyze experiences and the most advanced knowledge skills available throughout the world today; • develop proposals and recommendations in the world of diet and nutrition and present them to major opinion and decision makers. Advisory Board An Advisory Board was set up to guarantee the work performed by BCFN. This board is composed of experts from different professional backgrounds (economics, medicine, nutrition, sociology and environment) who, through a multidisciplinary approach, identify topics of interest, elaborate distinct and scientifically proven data and issue recommendations and proposals observing the principles of independence, sharing and excellence. The members of the current Advisory Board are: Barbara Buchner (International Energy Agency), Mario Monti (Bocconi University), Gabriele Riccardi (Italian Diabetology Society), Camillo Ricordi (Miami University), Joseph Sassoon (Alphabet Research) and Umberto Veronesi (European Institute of Oncology). The results of our work In its first year the BCFN published and circulated five position papers: • water management; • climate change, agriculture and food; • food and health; • the challenges of food safety; • the cultural dimension of food. The First International Forum on Food and Nutrition took place in Rome on 3 December 2009, at which numerous internationally acclaimed speakers (Vandana Shiva, Lester Brown, Martin Bloem, Alexander Sarris, William Haseltine, and Shimon Peres) gave talks on Barilla Center for Food & Nutrition’s four research areas. Information and news on the subject of food, numerous expert interviews (including Amartya Sen, Jeremy Rifkin, Luc Montagner, Kathleen Kennedy) and the full recording of the Forum held in Rome may be found on the website www.barillacfn.it.
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