1. Changes the food system
2. Empowers the international food design community
3. Drives food design research pathways
4. Supports funding impactful projects
5. Creates links between food and design knowledge
6. Disseminates food design opportunities
7. Feeds food innovation challenges
8. Engages communities to find solutions
9. Breaks the conventional boundaries

FORK was founded by a team of visionaries and dreamers, who believe that only through collaborative networks we can make the difference.

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We meet the human as a complete person, considering food choices one of the aspects of life that can more impact a user’s experience. New collective opportunities in the agri-food systems must be created: it is necessary to build concrete bridges between competencies and knowledge, research and practices, funds and ideas.

It’s important for a design approach to start the

development process by imagining how users might experience a feature. But it’s also critical that design does what we can to find any gaps once we get to the execution stage.

Promote a transdisciplinary and collaborative approach to food that helps researchers and professionals to create new knowledge and to design tools and strategies for future generations.
Through the activation of networks and partnerships, FORK aims to bring Academia to the market and vice versa.
FORK feeds scientific research and finds the most interesting trends in the design and food sector. FORK supports and provides opportunities for learning, sharing moments such as conferences and seminars, and educational pathways such as training sessions to share and discuss with best specialists, both challenges and opportunities, of future and current food scenarios.

Food innovation and sustainable entrepreneurship are key to the food industry of today and tomorrow.

FORK identifies and promotes partnerships between the va- rious stakeholders, but also pushes food designers to take concrete actions.

FORK works with manufacturers, farmers, R&D and retail de- partments to address the challenges businesses face today and implement better solutions.

FORK wants to create new connections between producers, companies, innovators, industry, designers, governments and policymakers, to build a more sustainable food system as pro- posed by the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) laun- ched by the UN in 2015.

FORK promotes collaboration with all sectors of Gastronomy: from Culinary Art, to Hospitality, from Sustainable Tourism to Collective Catering, to name a few.
Fork organization aspires to build synergies and partnerships between Gastronomy and Design, two fields of study with many values in common. These include respect for the consumer and responsibility for the users in making their choices.
Building the conditions for them to work together means defining the future of food, which includes sustainability, proximity, seasonality and non-waste of resources. Chefs and cooks are often recognized as celebrities (often televised). Their role has increased, and they have the power to influence both consumers and food producers. It is necessary to design new gastronomic scenarios, attentive to tradition and aimed at innovation.

FORK wants to enhance a global community of designers from different fields of expertise, and they want to make an impact today. Through digital media, FORK organization can reach a wide audience, even transversely away from food design, and accelerate the implementation of innovative design projects.
It is also up to designers’ work literacy with the consumer and companies to understand why it is essential to develop products, services, and experiences with diverse teams which work together.

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Mariana Eidler

Mariana Eidler is a designer working in Food Design focused on the relationship between Food, Gastronomy, Design and the food industry. Mariana has a PhD in Food Design from the University of Lisbon, graduated in Design at ELISAVA and Fine Arts at the UB, University of Barcelona, and Master in Pedagogical Orientation at UPC, the Polytechnic University of Barcelona. Master in Identity and Photography at Parsons School of Design in NY and Master in Communication. Art director, food designer, teacher and researcher, she worked in NY with Milton Glaser and in Barcelona, she founded @tactica.barcelona to provide global consultancy to companies in the food world. She works in Food-Design and transdisciplinary design, creating social and sustainable projects. She has obtained the Generalitat de Catalunya grant to develop creativity abroad. Her work has been recognized with the New York Festival Award, Laus Awards, International Design Awards and Clap Platinum Award. She is a teacher and the director of the Food Design Lab Barcelona at ELISAVA and the Study Abroad program in ELISAVA, Barcelona.

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Ricardo Bonacho holds a PhD in Design with a speciality in Food Design from the Lisbon School of Architecture of the Universidade de Lisboa. He co-coordinates the MSc in Innovation in Science and Culinary Arts and the MA in Food Design at the Estoril Higher Institute for Tourism and Hotel Studies; he is also a visiting professor at ELISAVA – Barcelona School of Design and Engineering in Barcelona and at the Faculty of Arts and Humanities of the University of Coimbra, in the doctoral course in Food Heritage: Identities and Cultures. He’s the Co-founder of the FORK Organization – Food Design for Opportunities and Knowledge, based on a holistic strategy to inspire people, companies, academics and professionals to act on the complex dilemmas that the current food system presents; and Co-founder of the Food Design Lab – Lisbon, which creates food experiences that promote the gastronomic identity of local communities. He is also the Innovation, Marketing and Communication Director at Imppacto, Catering & Events.

Pedro Alvarez

Pedro Álvarez is an entrepreneur, food tech expert, venture builder and jury member at the European Innovation Council (EIC Accelerator) since 2018. After +20 years as a marketing and innovation consultant, he co-founded – ivoro food innovation hub in Madrid in 2016 to accelerate innovation in the food industry, organizing innovation and acceleration programs for companies like Ebro Foods, Calvo, Deoleo, Campofrío and fuelling the emerging food tech ecosystem in Spain. He is a mentor at #WomenTechEU, EIT Food fellowship program, UAM emprende, EOI, and Universidad Miguel Hernández. During the lockdown, he co-founded FORK, a non-profit organization based in Brussels, to create the largest food design community in the world that will join the food tech ecosystems to address the challenges our food system faces. In 2021 he cofounded -ivoro.ventures a venture builder studio specialising in agrifood tech that finds opportunity and builds ventures from the academy (University, Colleges & Tech Centers). He teaches entrepreneurship at UAM (Madrid), Elisava (Barcelona) and ESHTE (Lisbon), and he is an active member of the food-tech ecosystem.

Sonia Massari has more than 20 years of experience as a researcher, lecturer, consultant, and designer in sustainability education, food design and innovative agri-food systems. She holds a PhD in Food Experience Design from the Engineering Department at the University of Florence, Italy. For 12 years, she was the Academic Director of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Food Studies programs in Rome, and she designed and coordinated more than 50 academic programs and 150 educational activities on food and sustainability for prestigious international institutes. She teaches at several universities around Europe. She is a faculty member at the Scuola Politecnica Design – Food Design Master Program; she teaches at ISIA Design School (graduate course: “Sociology of Changes. Design for the emergent food scenarios”) and at Roma Tre University – graduate course: “Sustainability Design Thinking”.She is a senior consultant at the Barilla Foundation and an Academic Director at the Future Food Academy. She received the International Women Innovation Award “Tecno-visionaria” (2012), the NAFSA TLS Knowledge Community’s Innovative Research in International Education Award (2014), and the Food Studies ASFS Pedagogy Award (2020). She is a board member of the Association for the Study of Food and Society and serves on the editorial board of the International Journal of Food Design.