Roberto: This week, as part 
of Fooding's pre-production,
we interviewed Ignacio Medina, 
the Spanish culinary critic
(with a Peruvian soul, 
as he says)... And for me,
the greatest connoisseur about 
Peru and
Latin America cuisine... we 
talked about Peruvian cuisine,
ingredients... 
designations of origin...
of everything... but above all, 
we talk about, how can we
generate an impact from the 
kitchen and through the
production of ingredients 
in the field...
to the producers, 
the farmers... in those people
who have the future of
food in their hands and are...
the future of Peru.
Ignacio: Look, I think that at 
the beginning of all this,
there is haute cuisine, 
today we have to understand the
dynamics of the market. 
The food market, and the
gastronomy restoration market, 
is an aspirational and
pyramidal shape market, 
and consumer fashions are
created above all, which is the 
smallest market and then
they are opening. For example.. 
If a high- level restaurant
values the chili pepper
Ignacio: The average 
restaurants are going to want
to have it. And the less 
average restaurants are going
to want to have it too... 
and in the end, it will end up
appearing in the retail
markets, because the
consumer starts 
asking for it...
and there is...  where trends 
and dynamics are created...
Roberto: And 
talking with Ignacio,
I realized what Fooding's 
role was here.
Roberto: What is the role
of a documentary that seeks to
project this 
idea internationally .
. . And it is simple (the role 
i mean) is about gaining time.
Roberto: It is about making 
things happen faster,
instead of taking 100 or 200 
years would take 5 or 6 years,
today with networks with 
this interconnected world,
everything is possible . 
. what tooks 100 years to
convert General Motors in the 
larger company in the world...
took 10 years , 
to Google or Netflix.
Ignacio: We have made great 
progress over the last 10 years
but it is a very slow process 
and the problem is that the
social process and generational 
development in the field,
is not so slow
Roberto: and I don't want to 
beat about the bush, but it is
here that everything 
comes together because...
what is the point, of having a 
super agro-industry or being
the first fishmeal exporters in 
the world if we cannot generate
a positive impact for everyone.
Ignacio: In 20 years there will 
be a new generation and that
new generation will not want to 
live like their parents,
will not want to live 
in a cabin, at 10,000 feet of
altitude without electricity, 
or cooking on the floor at the
door of the house, in
a house in which everything
smells of smoke, dark in which 
to go to charge a cell phone
you have to go down 800 meters 
to a house that is
on the road... where to go to 
watch a football game on
television you have to 
walk three hours. . .
Roberto: In Fooding, we always 
use the example
of Manuel Choque, who is a 
potato farmer from Cusco who
has managed to produce Andean 
potatoes full of antioxidants..
He is selling those potatoes, 
 at seven times the
average market price. So,  I 
comment about this story with
Ignacio and ask 
him this question.
Roberto: Then going back to 
the potato metaphor. If this
producer could sell his potato
at.. . let's say .
.. 10 euros.. 
would that change it all?
Ignacio: Well . . . If I could 
sell it for three dollars
or four dollars, of course, 
it would change radically but
the big problem 
of the farmer... and the
potato shows it, is that
we do not understand that the
producer has to live with 
dignity of that work... and if
we do not get it... We are 
making mistakes and we are
failing the producer. And we 
are creating a model that
is not real. That is based on a 
guy that in 2, 3 .
. . 10 years . . . will die or 
be older and would not be able
to work the field, and
no one will want to produce
in their land.
Roberto: It would be sad..  
but it really doesn't have to
be that way. We have it all.
Ignacio: Today, the great 
advantage that a country that
takes care of its products have,
 is that when you work on
products of high quality and 
little production, you can
achieve very 
high value-added markets.
Because there is a market 
willing to pay much more for a
chicken raised in a field 
running and fed with corn .
. . It is willing to pay much 
more for a fish caught with a
fish hook and taken out of the 
sea and sold tomorrow or the
day after tomorrow and is 
willing to pay much more for a
vegetable grown in the season 
with a variety, etc .
. . So, this is
what we have to look at.
Ignacio: This is like tourism; 
What do I want to have? I want
to have a city like Cusco full 
of backpackers and gentlemen
who grab your arm down the 
street to hire you a massage,
a Tour...  to sell 
you a necklace...
ask for alms, offer you a cousin
. . . Or I want to
have tourism that leaves 10 
thousand dollars between two
people in the city.
Roberto: I like the analogy 
of tourism, but disagree a
little with Ignacio.. 
and is that...   I think that
we can have both models, 
as in fact, we have
them in tourism. Maybe we could 
increase tourism from $
5,000 per head, for sure! And 
at the same time, we could
improve mass tourism. 
Because we know, how luxury
tourism works; it's what makes 
the destination attractive..
and makes, that a lot of 
products and services created
for mass tourism also 
have an exit. And this is
surprisingly what we have to 
Search also in the food market.
See how...finally, the
whole idea works.
Ignacio: What is 
our spearhead? ..
spearhead? .. 
Quality... and quality are
not large productions, they are 
small productions and those
small productions are going to 
pull the others. If I want to
give value to the producer I 
will always talk about small
productions and then...  
there will be the Benavides and
all these that will have their 
large plantations in Trujillo,
La Libertad  . . . and that 
they will grow 20 thousand
hectares of piquillo peppers 
and that they will flood the
world with cans 
of Piquillo peppers.
Great, but there is a problem 
with our Piquillo peppers .
. . . You go to a supermarket 
in Madrid and the Spanish one,
is worth 10 and
the Peruvian is worth 1!
Roberto: And it is
the same problem that Raymondi
identified more than 100 years 
ago that we are poor people,
but sitting in 
a golden bench... That's it...
we do not even know
the value of what we have.
Well, humbly, in Fooding, 
we look for answers;
Ignacio: How will I sell 
Peruvian Piquillo peppers as an
emblematic product in a country 
when that country does not have
a single recipe with piquillo 
peppers? How am I going to sell
the Navarra artichoke that is 
now being cultivated in
Chincha; The small one, 
the tasty one . . . in a
country where it is not
consumed. How am I going
to sell green asparagus . 
. . In how many
restaurants in Perú, have you 
seen Green Asparagus the
last year?
Roberto: but look, of course we 
sell them and it has been a
challenge and a great 
achievement to get here. Now we
have to go for more value. 
Associating all the ingredients
that we can produce
to these great stories
of Peruvian cuisine, to the 
stories of its farmers
of the recipes... 
of their traditions.
Ignacio: If there is no
identity, how can you
associate it with Peru. 
Actually the producers,
the sellers and the 
manufacturers of canned
asparagus from Navarra or 
the Piquillo pepper, are also
the ones who do it,
or buy it from here...
and label it there, and put 
Peru in small print... so that
it is not seen.
In the end there is
no real identification.
Roberto: What would have to 
happen for the
Peru brand, that... put it, 
in large, in that can...
makes the price rise. 
That... already works
with some products. It works 
for ceviche for example and
this is partly worthwhile of 
the Peru Brand but the Peru
brand has to go from the design 
screens of the admen..
to the pots, the tables, 
the mouths. You have
to feel it, you have 
to live it. Maybe if
you see Peru, large in
that can, and that
reminds you of 
those stuffed peppers,
I dont know... "A la huaracina" 
that you ate on your trip to
Peru or in the Tanta restaurant 
in Madrid . . maybe you will
associate it with 
a pleasant experience, to a
recipe that you want to 
repeat at home.
And then, maybe... you can 
buy the can. Maybe we
can start there..  and for me 
that is Fooding, The Future
Food and roll of Peru.
