Chefs on Fire III

Direct

All festivals created by Lohad that are funded with this campaign, implement practices based on a five-year sustainability strategy focusing on seven areas of action:

• Responsible food: Lohad’s strategy for this area has the goals of prioritizing local producers and ensuring local supply, working with chefs to develop low-waste recipes, set up composting and recycling stations, promoting participants’ awareness about sustainable food habits and partnering with social institutions for food donations after the festival.
• Energy and emissions: the promoter aims to have 100% of the energy consumed be from renewable sources, and reduce the GHG in 90% until 2030, by transitioning to efficient equipment, green batteries and through carbon compensation for the emission generated by the festivals.
• Water and sanitation: the goals in this area are to reduce the water consumption in 50% until 2023 and increase water reuse during the festivals by installing low-flow toilets, with showers and taps that reduce the amount of water used.
• Materials and circularity: here the festival intends to reduce single-use plastic to zero, raising the recycling rate to 100% and turning the festival 100% circular until 2030, by using biodegradable tableware, offering composting and recycling stations for minimal waste and form external partnerships to monitor the festivals’ performance regarding the materials used.
• Mobility and transportation: reduce in 55% the GHG emissions associated with people transportation and equipment use until 2030 and promoting sustainable alternatives for transportation and stay during the festival.
• Biodiversity: ensuring the reforestation of over 100% of the quantity of wood consumed during the festival, developing a plan to improve biodiversity in the festival locations.
• Community: the promoter believes in a festival in synergy with the community and accessible for all, through some initiatives such as zero waste involving children and their families, partnering with schools for food waste education, promoting inclusion through staff’s capacitation and accessibility options offered.

Indirect

• Reforestation for impact neutrality: the festival, being based on fire cooking, uses wood. For this reason, they plant trees more than equivalent to the amount of wood consumed at each event and aim to guarantee reforestation every year in excess of the wood purchased and consumed at the festival. To date, over 700 trees have been planted by the Chefs on Fire team in cooperation with Cascais Municipal Council for the Portuguese editions and 300 trees were planted with the Complutense University for the Spanish edition.

LOHAD was founded in 2019 by Gonçalo Castel-Branco, as a channel for sustainable creativity. The company, which currently has around 15 employees, is based in Lisbon.

The promoter creates sustainable entertainment events and positions itself as one of the main national players in the industry. It aims to continue to reposition national gastronomy as a cultural and social tool and to inspire people and companies to behave in a way that is better for their bodies and the planet.

In all its gastronomic projects, LOAHD tries to apply a simple structure as the basis for a larger conversation about who we are, the stories and habits that we care about and maintain - incredible food - that is good for those who consume it, for the community and the planet:

• Good for the community because they choose and promote local producers and stories.
• Good for those who consume, by trying to make customers fall in love with quality, what that represents, and educating them about the importance of their choices.
• Good for the planet because they present a varied diet with minimal environmental and social impact.

With the Presidential project, LOHAD was awarded the prize for best public event in the world (by the BEA Awards), the prize for innovative event by the National Tourism Awards (Expresso and BPI); with Chefs on Fire, the prize for best gastronomic event by the National Tourism Awards (Expresso and BPI); Event of the Year in 2021 by Time Out and Event of the Year by Mesa Marcada. Gonçalo Castel-Branco was, among other awards, classified as one of the 10 best Marketeers in the country by the Clube dos Criativos and honored by the Congress of Cooks for his "contribution to the growth and promotion of Portuguese gastronomy".