Giving Compass' Take:

• Robb Report interviews renowned chef Massimo Bottura about his work creating sustainable community kitchens and raising awareness about food waste.

• How can others follow Bottura's lead? It all starts with a passion for a cause — and the will to see a vision through.

• Learn what the pandemic revealed about the food system and food waste.

Imagine getting 60 of the world’s greatest chefs to fly out and meet you. It sounds impossible, right? But you’re not Massimo Bottura. “You know what this is?” the chef of three-Michelin-star Osteria Francescana says as he extracts an iPhone from his pocket, holding it up in front of him. “This is a phone. I look at the phone. I start to put in the numbers of all my friends. Not even 45 minutes, every single one said, ‘We’re going to be there.'” He laughs and tucks it away again. “That was the process. It was unbelievable.”

Now Bottura wasn’t telling the titans of the industry to drop what they’re doing and fly to Italy for no good reason. As the 2015 Milan Expo (an event formerly called The World’s Fair) approached, his home country would play host with the theme “Feeding the planet, energy for life” as the driving ethos of the months-long event.

But instead of building a pavilion at the Milan Expo 2015, he decided to build a refettorio, a place where he could feed the needy during that time. The project was two-pronged: Not only would it fight hunger, but it would also take a creative approach to solving the problem of food waste. It’s a problem chefs face all the time — to keep their restaurants profitable, they need to get the most out of the products they buy. And that’s why Bottura called his friends.

In his book Bread Is Gold, which he released late last year, Bottura wrote, “The knowledge, creativity, and know-how of professional chefs was essential to prove that salvaged food — overripe or bruised and beyond expiration dates, as well as scraps and trimmings that otherwise would be thrown away — were not only edible but even delicious.”

So over the course of six months, chefs from Daniel Humm and Rene Redzepi to Ana Ros and more came to Milan to take the raw ingredients they had available that day and turn them into delicious meals for kids in the afternoon and the needy at night. It was like an altruistic version of the show Chopped.

Read the full article about Massimo Bottura's efforts to tackle hunger and food waste at robbreport.com.