Episode 42 of The Informed Life podcast features an interview with food designer Nataly Restrepo. Nataly works as a food and beverage innovation consultant for restaurants and producers of consumer goods.
I asked Nataly on the show because I wanted to learn to learn more about food design. This is how she explained it:
food design actually is everything — like every designed action — that improves our relationship to food. So, it can be from a product and service, a business model, an object… everything that you can design that has an aim to improve our relationship to food.
In other words, it’s a holistic practice that strives to coordinate the work of various other professionals — chefs, architects, industrial designers, etc. — towards creating a coherent experience centered on eating.
As with many other such “big picture” design disciplines, I was curious about the degree to which clients understand the value that food design can bring to their business. She confirmed that this is a challenge:
It’s always very difficult to sell this approach because it’s something that can be very intangible sometimes, because you’re selling an experience, you’re selling that concept that obviously can be translated into tangible things, but it’s like a second part of the process. First you have to understand the vision and the superior meaning that you want to create, and it’s not always easy for the owner of a restaurant or the managers of a chef to recognize the value. But it’s starting to become easier.
I enjoyed this conversation with Nataly; I hope you get value from it too.
The Informed Life Episode 42: Nataly Restrepo on Food Design