Tag: chef

Matt Orlando – From Noma to building the world’s most circular restaurant and disrupting the chocolate industry

22nd July 2025 koenvanseijen Diet Change, Nutrient Dense Food, Regenerative Agriculture 0 Comments

A conversation with Matt Orlando, chef, entrepreneur, and former head chef at Noma. He is also the founder of Amass, one of the most circular and fully organic restaurants in the world, which closed at the end of 2022. He then focused on a project in Singapore and is now back in Denmark, currently very busy with, among other things, a new restaurant in Copenhagen.

What happens when someone who worked as a head chef in one of the best restaurants in the world, Noma, starts going deep down the rabbit hole of sustainability and responsibility? Join the fascinating journey of one of the most interesting chefs in the world, who not only redefined what a circular, sustainable restaurant means (and no, it isn’t more expensive to run, and it doesn’t require a lot of tech, etc.) but it does require a completely new mindset and way of thinking.

He shares some fascinating examples and data, like monetary savings- €17,000 in a year on water costs, for instance- which were only possible because of a mindset shift. We talk about the role of fine dining and the hospitality world in transforming the agri-food system, the role of technology, and of course, fermentation, and the VC-funded BS in food tech and fermentation.

We discuss their new restaurant concept, still very much under wraps, but exciting. And also, how they are disrupting the very dirty cacao and chocolate industry with an upcycled, fully organic, price-neutral spent brewers’ grain, which you can already find in “chocolate” cookies in the Nordics without tasting the difference.

Dan Barber – AI-Powered natural breeding: The End of GMOs, Gene Editing, and CRISPR?

25th February 2025 koenvanseijen Diet Change, Nutrient Dense Food, Regenerative Agriculture 1 Comment

An overdue check-in conversation with Dan Barber,  chef, co-owner of Blue Hill restaurants and co-founder of Row 7 Seeds, where we dive into the fascinating world of seeds and how breeding is evolving with the explosion of AI and other technologies. No, we don’t need GMOs, CRISPR, or other risky blunt instruments. We discuss the implosion of the fake meat hype, which was at its peak when we last spoke four years ago, why insane umami flavor and potentially self-nitrogen-fixing tomatoes are revolutionary. This is a deep conversation about bread and wheat—and why breeding wheat specifically for whole meal flour is so important, where Row 7 Seeds, his seed company, is headed and why they’re launching a CPG brand using pressure-cooked vegetables (because processing isn’t a dirty word).

When your vegetables come from incredible seeds and are grown in healthy soils, you don’t need unhealthy additives. We kick things off with mouthwatering winter spinach and dive into a long conversation about the role of technology in food and agriculture. No, we shouldn’t go back to the past. No, we’re not Luddites. In fact, Dan is incredibly bullish on the role of AI in natural breeding—perhaps the best of both worlds, enabling faster breeding for local conditions rather than global crops that lack flavor, nutrients, and rely on excessive chemicals.

Get ready for a firehose of stories on food, seeds, soil, and culture!

Anthony Myint – Sourcing better isn’t going to change the food system, award-winning chef might have the silver bullet for system change

5th March 2024 koenvanseijen Diet Change, Nutrient Dense Food, Regenerative Agriculture, Short Food Webs 0 Comments

A conversation with Anthony Myint, co-founder and executive director of Zero Foodprint. Award winning chef, Myint was disappointed about his impact on acres by his farm to table restaurants and he is now fully committed to systems change. Koen and Anthony talk about how to really move the needle on many more new practice acres which are acres where regenerative practices are used for the first time, opting out mechanisms where a small opt out fee is added to restaurant bills and food products, collective regeneration, and much more.

Sam Kass – Get people access to carrots before talking about nutrient density, former Obama’s chef and nutrition advisor turned investor says

17th October 2023 koenvanseijen Diet Change, Ecosystem Services Payments, Nutrient Dense Food, Nutrient Density in Food, Policy and Legislation, Regenerative Agriculture, Transition finance 0 Comments

A conversation with Sam Kass, former White House Chef and Senior Policy Advisor for Nutrition of the Obama’s administration and partner at Acre VC. We talk about the potential of VC in the space, the challenges of the real world and why we should focus on getting everyone access to carrots before focusing on the quality and growing practices, why carbon payments is a very interesting and real entry point to scale, and more.

Dan Barber, great flavour, health benefits and healthy ecosystems can only come from healthy soils not a lab

14th September 2021 koenvanseijen Diet Change, Farmers First Tech, Nutrient Dense Food, Ownership, Regenerative Agriculture, Short Food Webs 9 Comments

Dan Barber, chef and co-owner of Blue Hill both in NY and Stone Barn and co-founder of Row 7 Seed Company, joins us to talk about the role of seeds and chefs in regeneration, and where to invest in order to win while helping the environment.