About FFI
Food Future Institute is a culinary educational experience dedicated to teaching the art of elevated plant-based cuisine to the next generation of chefs, home cooks, and foodies. FFI was built by a team of forward-thinking individuals united by a shared vision; a world with more conscious approach to consumption, a food paradigm driven by health, and a global shift in priorities to create a more sustainable future.
Helmed by Chef Matthew Kenney, plant-based food pioneer and world-renowned restaurateur, the MKC innovation team has created FFI to be a platform where a diverse community of like-minded students, and the vast expanse of global perspectives that they contribute, help to strengthen the momentum of our mission.
Vision
At FFI, we encourage students to connect and communicate throughout their learning experience, enhancing collective creativity and broadening the scope of possibilities for each participant. Plant-based cuisine is a culinary art and an area of scholastic study, but its impact extends far beyond what you will learn here with us.
This vision is realized through the world's most cutting - edge culinary education program committed to the elevated art of plant-based cuisine.
Purpose
As a culinary education program, we are training our students to adapt great skills that may take them to limitless new prospects and opportunities. FFI educates on the benefits of reversing contemporary culinary practices to elevate the food we eat, and innovate the way we create it. For us, that all starts with plants – and demonstrating how exquisite they can be when approached with equal parts skill and imagination.
As the producers of our food, chefs have the greatest influence on the behavior, habits and tendencies of our communities, which are manifested through the daily necessity of consumption. We acknowledge the extent of responsibility involved in this role; it has the capacity to shape the future in one way or the other.
There is no relationship comparable to that of a chef and their ingredients, one that requires a deep level of respect throughout all phases of not just the culinary process, but the life cycle of our food. The planting, growing, harvesting, trading, preparing and serving of food follows a cyclical, deeply interconnected design, and we strive to preserve and protect the symbiotic interrelation between human consumption and the Earth that sustains it. Only then will we understand the true artistic and culinary value of the sustenance of our Earth, the energy that has timelessly transitioned between sun, space, soil and seasons, yet through the chef’s hand, materializes as the next dish plated and served to friends, family and our broader communities.
The planting, growing, harvesting, trading, preparing and serving of food follows a cyclical, deeply interconnected design, and we strive to preserve and protect the symbiotic interrelation between human consumption and the Earth that sustains it.
Only then will we understand the true artistic and culinary value of the sustenance of our Earth, the energy that has timelessly transitioned between sun, space, soil and seasons, yet through the chef’s hand, materializes as the next dish plated and served to friends, family and our broader communities.
About Matthew Kenney
Matthew Kenney is one of the world’s first leading chefs at the forefront of plant-based cuisine, and author of 12 cookbooks and a best-selling memoir, a culinary educator and CEO of Matthew Kenney Cuisine, a multifaceted lifestyle company specializing in plant-based cuisine throughout several unique markets.
Matthew Kenney graduated from the French Culinary Institute and, after working in upscale New York City kitchens, opened a number of his own highly regarded restaurants in New York and along the East Coast. He has earned several awards, including being named one of America’s Best New Chefs by Food and Wine Magazine and was twice nominated as a Rising Star Chef in America by the James Beard Foundation. Kenney has appeared on numerous food and talk shows and regularly lectures on the subject of food and health, including two highly-watched TEDx talks.