Future scenario: Personalized Gastronomy in the Basque Country 2050

It’s 2050, Gipuzkoa is the international example of the Personalized Gastronomy movement. People participate in a food system that is healthy, sustainable, and delicious. Tourists come from all over the world to visit the beauty of the city and view the cultural shifts occurred over the last decades. Visiting San Sebastian is unique.

Food’s deliciousness encourages mindful eating.

Early February, there are 2 varieties of apples in the fruit market of a Txoko. One small bumpy green variety, is bright, sour, with grassy notes. At first bite, the apple’s skin just breaks. A sourness quenches your palate. The sensation is almost overwhelming before a refreshing burst of sweetness balances the acidity. The experience is familiar yet completely strange. As you eat the apple you are conscious of the whole experience. Food’s deliciousness encourages mindful eating.

Omics technology determined this apple to be at the peak of ripeness for the next 48 hours. The tree is from a historic apple seed saved at the seed bank. It was bred more for flavor and nutrient quality than yield. This variety of apple stays in the market for 4 days, then what hasn’t been sold is turned into cider in the traditional way by Txoko members. This specific cider has won prizes for its quality and competes with the best wines in the world, all Basque ciders do. Once our bumpy green apple vacates the shelves, another variety takes its place - this apple has just reached peak ripeness too. Today there are over 70 varieties of apples cultivated in Gipuzkoa. Omics technology is readily accessible to interested farmers to determine peak deliciousness - when flavor and nutrients are best. Omics analysis is used in more than 50 cultivars and is expanding fast. Peppers, brassicas, leeks, and lettuces are all delicious, and people have noticed - the sector has grown spectacularly, and people eat fresh vegetables every day.

Eating up tradition.

Rarely do people eat animal meat in Gipuzkoa. Usually reserved for holidays and special occasions because of its high cost, which mainly covers fair prices for farmers. Because of the lower demand on meat products, animal welfare has increased and farmers don’t rush in production and animals spend a long time on the fields. New taxes on both climate impact and high-fats and sugars-foods, have increased the costs significantly and discouraged overall consumption. Processed foods are made in local factories with local ingredients. As a consequence, demand has sprung for Personalized Gastronomy, spending up to 35% of their budget on food.

A Food Passport.

When one first arrives in San Sebastian, it’s hard to resist being tested for your Food Passport. The process is rather elaborate: go to a Txoko with an appointment and the process begins. First is an informal face to face interview about your food preferences. Images of food are flashed across a screen and an AI camera records your facial expressions. Next, a saliva sample is collected to sequence your DNA. You are then served a meal of local products while wearing an EEG-helmet. The activity in your brain is monitored as you eat. Finally, a stool sample is collected to analyze your gut microbiota. Within a couple of hours, you receive your new Food Passport, which looks no different than an ID card, synchronized seamlessly with all wearables you may have. The Food Passport is the crystallization of decades of research in the fields that lead to Personalized Gastronomy, especially the creation of specific profiles based on omics sciences (to understand at a molecular level how food can most benefit the individual) and cognitive food choice models.

Using your Food Passport.

Walking into restaurants with your food passport in San Sebastian is a unique experience. Scan it and chefs will know your profile. AI helps the chef modify your menu to fit your emotional and nutritional needs. Are you tired (need coffee?), sick (immune-boosting foods?), or excited (perhaps champagne to celebrate?). Chefs know you like your best friend -she knows exactly what sort of food you want when you walk in the door.

New Txokos are a symbol of our food system, strategically located throughout Gipuzkoa. The centers are dynamic spaces of Basque society. On one end, Txokos have farmers and fishermen teaching classes about local seasonality of both land and sea. Climate suitability makes these products the most sustainable and delicious. In txokos you will also find new ingredients that used to be waste, such as cider lees being transformed into aromatic breads or scrumptious desserts.

In the txoko, you scan your food passport and AI cameras analyze your health status. How much did you sleep last night? When did you eat last? Did you exercise? Your wearables give this information to the system to create a painting of you. The system provides menu and ingredient recommendations. Machine learning and a molecular understanding of the functionality of food suggest that you should probably have the potatoes seasoned with paprika instead of thyme. You should also eat more frequently, so you prepare a quick meal at the Txoko before heading home.

What else happens in Txokos?

People go to Txokos daily. It’s part of their overall engagement with food. Nearly every citizen is a member. Membership is inclusive of other cultures when traditional custom was to be exclusive for locals. Members come together to learn cooking, celebrate good food and pass on skills multi-generationally. Txokos are a culturally resilient Basque institution. Membership is optional, however the Basque Government provides incentives for participating, such as tax breaks and food produced by the txokos, coupled with more flexible hours at the workplace, as the culture leans towards productivity over time spent. As the working people are motivated to join the txoko, retired and elderly people also have many incentives to join. In the txoko they have a place to keep active, be a valuable part of the community and eat great food. When an older member cooks in the txoko, younger members are excited to join in the prep. It’s a way for them to learn about the traditional ways and listen to great stories of other times, where being Basque was very different but essentially the same: treasuring food, sharing stories of people and being resilient to change with tenacity.

Txokos, like in 2020, are exciting places, to spend time together, enjoy food and feel energized by the frantic activity that they host. Any given day you could work in the vegetable garden, give a hand processing seasonal produce for different uses, assist or teach a class or cook a small meal to share. This positive environment has been key in overturning crippling rates of depression and anxiety. The Chef has been an essential figure in popularizing Txokos.

The role of the chef.

The chef’s platform is very visible, like a celebrity, but also a social activist. They are the voice of the public on issues like health awareness, sustainability, and biodiversity. Their messages are communicated through restaurants, but also outside of the kitchen. They are often seen teaching workshops in New Txokos, working with scientists and farmers to promote sustainable farming and healthy and sustainable eating habits. New Txokos are also a platform of open innovation, for multidisciplinary cooperation between key players of innovation in Gipuzkoa food space. Information technologies have been an amplifier of chef’s knowledge. Chefs have historically worked opposite to supplier consolidation, sometimes buying from over 40 suppliers to ensure the best products. In 2050, this knowledge has been capitalized by society, participating in live rating platforms of local producers curated by chefs, keeping an open, transparent and dynamic local market, ensuring fair prices and competitiveness. Overall, chefs are an excellent vehicle for communication about wellbeing and the food system.

Best practices for zero waste.

A set of policies, technology and innovations have totally changed the face of the logistics. Products can be accessed directly, maximizing transparency and profit for the farmer. Policies that protect local producers from cheaper imported products, mostly based on carbon footprint taxes, are in place. Any given day a citizen of Gipuzkoa can buy food either through new txokos, markets, stores or chef curated platforms, and pick it up in person, approached by last mile self-driven transport or from food lockers in urban and rural settings. Precision and efficiency along the system, coupled with food engagement and communal food management in Txokos has led to zero waste.

Immigrants have slowly grown into being a large part of the population and have social status as they represent the productive muscle of the economy. Their backgrounds are diverse, some coming from other parts of Spain due to both desertification of the South and high quality of life in Gipuzkoa. Others are political and climate refugees from overseas. Lastly, Personalized Gastronomy attracts highly skilled workers to all sectors of the food system.

Food and the healthcare system.

In the healthcare system, food is the main tool for health, and chefs and scientists work to design foods that for example incorporate and feed microbes in your body that promote health. It’s proven that the most effective nutrition is with local and seasonal products and food becomes mainstream preventive medicine. Agriculture focuses on producing medicine-grade produce, aimed at achieving most quality of micro compounds. Such precision leads to the creation of brain foods, specialized for enhancing emotions and cognitive functions.

Doctors will provide personalized health advice by monitoring real-time data from wearables. These changes in healthcare system attract pharma, now called Phood, to research the impact of these paradigm shift. Attracting heavyweights of the industry is a new source of input to our economy, that is injected into all programs in Personalized Gastronomy.

Would you like to be a part of this future?

Originally published for the Rockefeller Foundation & Open IDEO Food Systems Challenge, while working for BCCInnovation. Authored by Estefania Simon-Sasyk & Greg Martínez, with inputs from several internal futures workshops.