Claus Meyer on eating as an agricultural act

Building a regenerative future with every meal

Claus Meyer is a true gastronomic entrepreneur. He co-founded Noma with Rene Redzepi, which has been voted the best restaurant in the world multiple times. In 2004, he spearheaded the writing of the New Nordic Manifesto, an influential philosophy that spread like wildfire on how chefs can approach cooking using traditional ingredients and local produce.

Claus is also behind the Melting Pot Foundation, which trains individuals in underserved communities from Morocco to Bolivia and even in Danish prisons to become chefs. He’s also been the host of multiple cooking shows with global reach, authored several cookbooks, started a catering company, deli, bakery chain, country hotel, orchard, and is behind several high-end restaurants globally.

The red thread through all of Claus’s work is a desire to create healthy, delicious meals that inspire us to see eating as an agricultural act. In this episode, we discuss Claus’s career and how his opinion on what a good food future looks like has changed over time.

Top 50 Farmers

Around 20 minutes in, you’ll hear me ask Claus what he thinks of the New Nordic Manifesto today. It’s been more than 20 years since it was written. What is the legacy? And what needs to happen now to move the food system forward?

Claus’s answer is perfectly linked to an initiative I am Co-Lead on called Top 50 Farmers.

As Claus correctly points out, for years now the spotlight has been on chefs. They’ve been treated like rockstars and for good reason, but now it’s time for the spotlight to shift to the farmers who work the land and form the foundation of our food system. They are the true rockstars.

This is why we’ve created Top 50 Farmers to find, spotlight, and honor fifty regenerative farmers from across Europe. In doing so, we create role models to inspire future generations to enter the field and create a market for regenerative goods.

If your organization is working towards a regenerative food system and you’d like to learn more about how you can get involved, please reach out to me at analisa@top50farmers.org