Chefs Collaborative is a national nonprofit network with a mission to inspire, educate, and celebrate chefs and food professionals building a better food system. Chefs Collaborative was founded in 1993 by visionary chefs including John Ash, Rick Bayless, Susan Feniger, Nora Pouillon, and Alice Waters. They acknowledged their leadership in the celebration of the pleasures of food, and they recognized the impact of food choices on our collective personal health, on the vitality of cultures, and on the integrity of the global environment. Now more than 20,000 strong, the Chefs Collaborative network of influential chefs and food professionals continues to drive the market for sustainable food by changing menus, changing lives, and demonstrating the many merits of doing so for all eaters.

Our Guiding Principles:

• Food is fundamental to life, nourishing us in body and soul. The preparation of food strengthens our connection to nature. And the sharing of food immeasurably enriches our sense of community.
• Good food begins with unpolluted air, land, and water, environmentally sustainable farming and fishing, and humane animal husbandry.
• Food choices that emphasize delicious, locally grown, seasonally fresh, and whole or minimally processed ingredients are good for us, for local farming communities, and for the planet.
• Cultural and biological diversity are essential for the health of the earth and its inhabitants. Preserving and revitalizing sustainable food, fishing, and agricultural traditions strengthen that diversity.
• By continually educating themselves about sustainable choices, chefs can serve as models to the culinary community and the general public through their purchases of seasonal, sustainable ingredients and their transformation of these ingredients into delicious food.
• The greater culinary community can be a catalyst for positive change by creating a market for good food and helping preserve local farming and fishing communities.