Human food, the articles of animal or plant origin that we have chosen since ancient times to satisfy certain physiological needs, the operations to which we have subjected them to make them more appetising or assimilable, and, broadly speaking, all the circumstances surrounding the phenomenon are considered distinguishing traits of places. Identifying food items in this way means that our species has afforded them a quality that extends beyond their organic components and beyond a dimension that transcends the sphere of the material world: whoever speaks of food also implicitly alludes to the culture and the society in which food is produced and consumed. The fact is that all the foodstuffs on our tables possess economic, historical and sociocultural meanings through which territories and their inhabitants communicate.

Foodstuffs are domesticated, subjected to transformations designed to improve their texture, seasoned and combined in order to increase their palatability, and finally presented in ceremonious rituals that involve a range of new artefacts. An endless number of professionals take part in this process, bringing together the efforts of ancestors and contemporaries and, above all, revealing our relationship with the land. All these aspects must be reassessed, for they are indispensible in the transmission of new forms of progress and knowledge, not only for our own and other communities but for the future.

For all this we have created ιδFood, a platform from which we advise public organisations, companies and individuals in the food and agriculture sector on their path to connectivity to similar and new professions, communities, territories and ways of life that will expand their possibilities.

Very soon, the platform would develop its surroundings into a meeting point, a living organism undergoing constant growth and transformation, particularly as a collective construction: there, at idfood.org, science, technique and the consumption of all that food represents will be at everyone’s service.