Open Food Factory is a design action developed by Polifactory, the makerspace/fab lab of Politecnico di Milano within the Distributed Design Platform, a project funded by the Creative Europe Programme to implement the global Fab Lab network, promoting and improving the connection between designers and makers with the European market. Open Food Factory explores the relationship between distributed design and food processing to develop open-source solutions dedicated to the fermentation and distillation or extraction of food, stimulating the circularity of urban food systems.

During this event, the Open Food Factory initiative was presented to the audience and the Open call for ideas was officially launched, with the final aim to develop and prototype 2 tools for fermentation and distillation proposed by young designers studying at Politecnico di Milano. The prototypes will be tested with the herbs and flowers of the Herbula Garden, the T-Factor temporary wild garden at MIND.

To stimulate reflection on the relationship between design and plant-based food, a panel of guests was invited to talk about their design and experimental experiences in the field of fermentation and distillation:

Francesco Bombardi: Food Designer and co-director Master Design for Food POLI.Design;

Yue Liu from to foodesign: Working on Product & Visual Design projects related to food culture and experiences with food;

Stefano Tosoni from Wood*ing – wild food lab: Research lab and workshop experimenting wild food for human nutrition;

Maud Bausier and Antoine Jaunard from Domingo Club: A creative duo promoting plant proteins and creating the tools for everyone to make them at home, for the benefit of our planet.

The Call for Ideas closed on 21 October 2022, receiving the candidacy of 6 projects by 6 different teams of Polimi students.