The team behind the World's 50 Best Restaurants awards recently announced their latest 50 best list covering 50 bright, young people who are changing the world of gastronomy in unique and interesting ways.
Introducing the 50 Nest. Instead of a ranking, 50 Next is divided into seven industry-led categories: Gamechanging Producers; Tech Disruptors; Empowering Educators; Entrepreneurial Creatives; Science Innovators; Hospitality Pioneers and Trailblazing Activists. The celebrates everyone from activists to app creators, but in contrast to the other awards hosted by the brand, there's no competitive aspect to this list and there is no hierarchy.
Some highlights from the inaugural 2021 Next 50 list include:
Gamechanging Producers - Mark Emil Hermansen, "The social anthropologist unlocking new flavour in cocktails", cofounder of the company Empirical which uses highly advances techniques to achieve new flavours and tastes from their ingredients and beverages.
Tech Disruptors - Jonathan Ng, cofounder of SinFooTech, the Singapore-based company behind the world's first alcoholic beverage made from soy whey, a tofu manufacture by-product.
Empowering Educators - Maureen Muketha, founder of Tule Vyema ('Let's Eat Right', in Swahili) educating the women cooking for their families in Nairobi to tackle the prevalent malnourishment in the region, as well as working to give them the means to feed their community with nutritious food that is indigenous and sustainable.
Science Innovators - Leah Bessa, co-founder of Gourmet Grubb in South Africa, engineers of the world's first insect-derived 'dairy' product, made from the sustainably farmed black soldier fly.
Hospitality Pioneers - Douglas McMaster, a former Trends Event speaker and founder of Silo, the zero-waste hospitality concept.
Trailblazing Activists - Matt Jozwiak, who in partnership with his old Eleven Madison Park boss Daniel Humm, launched Rethink Food, an organisation that collects excess food from restaurants, grocery stores and corporate kitchens and repurposes it to make nutritious meals for those facing food poverty.
Read the full list here.