The Power of Food for Connection with Fooditude's Cristina Covello

When I first connected with Cristina Covello about two months ago, none of us would imagine what storms would swamp our businesses. Both of us were busy cultivating a happy workforce through food in the office.

This podcast clocks in at around 18 minutes. You can also listen to it on iTunes, stream on Google Podcasts, or Spotify or grab the RSS feed in your player of choice. So find a comfortable nook in your home and let Cristina and I keep you company.

Today the power of food for connection has a different meaning.

Cristina doesn't think that “the idea of the office is going to be dead by any means,” but it’s definitely going to change. And with that, also how people eat, dine, and interact with each other.

In this episode, I chat with the Head of Strategic Growth at Fooditude, a contract catering company serving tech and media firms across London, Cristina Covello.

In this special Homebound episode of The Nourishing Workplace, Cristina and I talk about what has changed for her both personally and professionally, how office food culture will develop, and how her company, Fooditude, is planning on doing to survive during this pandemic.

“People’s habits will change: the way they eat, what they eat, when they eat, how they prepare food, what they perceive as safety to eat, how close they’re going to sit to other people at the dining table.”

Cristina Covello How Fooditude Responded to COVID-19

With the outbreak of COVID-19 and people mandated to work from home, Fooditude suddenly had no business. However, a core team of people including Cristina has been working to figure out how to use the kitchen. If not to cook meals for office workers to serve food to other categories of the population. 

Since the time of our interview, Fooditute has reopened the kitchen in central London, cooking meals for people in hospitals and feed those who are lonely, in self-isolation, or cannot access food for financial reasons. So far, they’ve served over 6,500 meals and have been tweeted by Jamie Oliver and Keith Lemon!

(If you want to learn more or help Fooditude, you can find useful information here and here.)

Key takeaways

Here's what you'll learn:

How her work has been affected by social distancing and how her company quickly pivoted to serve hospitals

How to live with uncertainty and how to bring normalcy to everyday life––especially if you are new to remote work 

Some of the ways in which the corporate catering industry will change

How work-life might look like a near future

The pitfalls and advantages of the hospitality industry and how Fooditute is using these resources to be at service today.

[mc4wp_form id="25727"] Useful links

Fooditute’s COVID-19 Emergency Response

5 Eating at Work Trends To Watch Out For in 2020 and Beyond

How to Change Institutional Food with Joshna Maharaj

Listen to the previous episodes of Homebound – The Nourishing Workplace: Living with Technology with Trend Forecaster Nanon Soeters and Moving Forward with Purpose with Happiness Consultant Samantha Clarke

What is your biggest insight from this conversation?

Please let me know in the comments below.

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In the last episode of this series (TNW 16), there will be a giveaway of a limited edition set of cards illustrated by Clara Ernst for WE Factory and printed in Italy on Favini Crush Corn paper. I’ll choose randomly a name from the reviews that are left on Apple Podcasts.