Monica Viani, journalist at the Editrade publishing house and co-founder of the food and wine and culture blog Hungry.it he explains how, after more than a year of pandemic, the reader's attention for what he finds on his plate has grown and the frantic search for the recipe tout-court has been overcome. Today the conviction seems to emerge that before the gourmet experience it is necessary to know the ingredient that must be respected and then transformed.
The future according to Monica? The problem will not be giving news, but how to propose it and with which insights to stimulate our audience.
How did you deal with this pandemic and the consequent great difficulty in the restaurant sector with the newspaper you collaborate with? Have you somehow changed your usual narrative? Have any special initiatives been carried out to describe this period so out of the ordinary?
"The Famelici blog magazine (www.hungry.it) deals with food and culture. So, at the outbreak of the pandemic, we decided to investigate those issues that could offer the food world an incentive to reflect on what strategies to implement to build a better future. We have explored issues related to new technologies in order to allow restaurateurs and small producers to start new forms of marketing, capable of giving the consumer a valid alternative to GD and the giants of distribution. To help the tourism sector, we continued to talk about territories, underlining their link with food. In addition, for a year we sent, once a month, a newsletter to offer our readers an overview of the main food for thought offered by the Italian and foreign press, as well as by the companies that promoted an ethical, sustainable and reasoned restart ».
From your point of view, how did the food and catering companies (food companies, but also chefs, restaurants etc) communicate in this period? Are there any initiatives that particularly impressed you and that you wanted to highlight?
“The restaurateurs, small businesses and the tourism sector have been left to fend for themselves. There was no authoritative voice capable of interpreting the crisis of those categories of workers, which represent a large slice of the Italian GDP. Often small businesses, in order to survive, had to comply with rules imposed by those who offered the take-away service. There have been timid attempts, often little told, of small companies, which have tried to approach their customers with original initiatives. Unfortunately, these “voices in the desert” failed to network and thus acquire the strength that could have transformed them into an interesting alternative. The press, in turn, has its faults, having often limited itself to recounting the discomfort without gathering positive testimonies ».
And how did your readers react? Have you noticed a greater sensitivity to certain issues related to the world of food? In your opinion, has there been an increase in attention to this sector?
«We registered greater attention to issues related to sustainability and the desire to know what is on the plate. On the other hand, it is still very difficult to deal with issues related to the conditions of workers, especially when it comes to farmers. We have witnessed a timid overcoming of the spasmodic search for the recipe. The conviction seems to be beginning to emerge that before making a dish one must know the ingredient that must be respected and then transformed. The world of information, if the path of offering only recipes continues, risks saturation and the consequent decline. In our opinion, the effort to be made is to deal more with the cultural, social, ethical and environmental aspects, without forgetting the theme of conviviality ».
After the pandemic, and when we can finally talk about a restart, how do you think communication in the food sector will change? Which channels should be privileged and which ones have had their day?
«The printed media is going through a profound period of crisis, the longest and most deleterious in its history. The only way, to be able to return to fascinate the reader, is that of innovation, but publishers seem to prefer the policy of cuts over that of investments. The online media do not seem to know how to exploit the spaces left by the printed word, replicating the model of the print newspaper online. Blogs have lost their initial liveliness. Today we look a lot at FB, IG, Podcasts and videos. It is difficult to say what will happen in the near future. The hope is that information does not remain concentrated in a few hands in order to guarantee free and plural information. The problem will not be to give news, but how to propose it and which insights to stimulate ».
Do you have any future projects that you want to anticipate related to your newspaper or your professional life?
"Like idiemme and Famelici, we have started a project, #famedivero, which resumes an initiative born in 2018 and presented at the Milan Food Week, with the patronage of the Municipality of Milan. As Nadine Gordimer said "truth is not always beautiful, but the hunger for truth is". We are talking about that "hunger" that requires you to find answers to uncomfortable questions, whose goal is to build an Italy that looks to the future, without forgetting those values that have allowed it to be considered the cradle of culture and good food in the world. We want to put in the spotlight the need for the search for authenticity and for the defense of the common good. We want to draw a map drawn by artisans, small agricultural producers, winemakers, restaurateurs, touching every region of Italy. To do this we must start from a simple question: how can we measure or quantify the authenticity of a product, untangling ourselves in a myriad of unclear information? How can we give a voice to those who have few tools to make themselves heard? A small revolution driven by great ideals ».
