ENZIMA: how to bring sustainable food to restaurants

At the Daniel and Nina Carasso Foundation we believe that food transformation is a reality that requires the collaboration of many areas, including the hospitality industry. For this reason, we promoted ENZIMA, an emerging and innovative project that was born with a clear mission: to accelerate the transition to a healthier and more sustainable diet from one of the most influential epicentres of food decisions in our society: restaurants. This program seeks to bring about systemic change that not only transforms kitchens, but the entire ecosystem that surrounds them.

The hospitality market is continuously growing, more and more people entrust the management and preparation of their food to third parties. For this reason, we believe it is necessary to intervene in the inherited models so that the food transition is also present in these professional kitchens. ENZIMA responds to all these current needs and challenges of the hospitality industry, such as the staff crisis, working conditions, values within kitchens, profitability, the use of healthy and sustainable products, the communication of the science of cooking to other people, taking into account that economic sustainability is an integral part of an environmentally and socially sustainable model.

With the ENZYME programme, the Foundation aims to transform, consolidate and simplify scientific knowledge about sustainable food linked to catering in order to be able to communicate this knowledge through an honest documentary that will be made public in October of this year, to train through the call for residencies and round tables, to finally transform as a result of the previous work.

ENZIMA is a program that differs from others because it is built according to the needs and challenges of the hospitality industry today, but also the challenges of the future. Their work and training methodology is not unidirectional, but the contribution of knowledge is collective and the work methodologies are more related to an artistic residency than to a typical training.

What will the ENCIMA program do?

-Research: in which identifiers have been detected in the social, environmental and economic sustainability of a hospitality initiative. ENZIMA has defined other concepts related to the operational aspects of a restaurant, such as purchase or supply, production and the community that participates and/or receives the impact generated by the project. The result of crossing all these aspects, as if it were a tissue, results in ENZIMA’s indicators of healthy and sustainable eating.

-Documentary Ebullición: it was created as a tool for dissemination and awareness of sustainability in the restaurant industry. Through seven real testimonies of hoteliers from different parts of the country, challenges, good practices, successes and doubts are shared, transferring theoretical knowledge to an accessible and close format. This audiovisual piece seeks to inspire other professionals in the sector to integrate sustainable practices in their kitchens.

The documentary has the collaboration of the restaurants Rambal (Madrid), Lera (Zamora), Ojinegra (Teruel), Basajaun and Kofradía (San Sebastián), Tintero (Málaga) and Gatblau (Barcelona). After the summer, it will be presented at national and international festivals and will have a first public viewing at Infinito Delicias. Ebullición vindicates restaurants as agents of social change and portrays a sustainable gastronomic movement that extends discreetly but firmly throughout the territory.

-Round tables: to continue debating and developing these indicators of healthy and sustainable food, round tables will be held throughout the national territory with experts in the sector.

-Call and training: at the end of 2025 the call will be launched for five people to enjoy a residence in which they will be trained in an innovative way in sustainable catering. For a month in 2026, they will receive training, accompaniment, accommodation and spaces in which to develop their proposals.

With ENZIMA, we are simmering the dishes of tomorrow, a tomorrow in which every decision made in a hospitality project has the power to regenerate, inspire and transform. We are committed to a hospitality industry that not only feeds bodies, but also communities, territories and futures, because when sustainability becomes an essential ingredient, it not only improves the dish, it improves the world.