How We Eat sits at the edge of systems thinking, food, and the belief that the most important conversations happen around a table.

Ashley Scarborough

Ashley Scarborough is a systems change designer and regenerative futures researcher. She has worked with many organisations to create change including The Crown Estate, Tesco, IDEO, and Forum for the Future, and across that work certain questions keep popping up: how do complex systems actually behave and change? What does it take for people to see the world differently? How We Eat is where those questions become tangible and tasty.

Her practice spans system mapping and the dynamics of complex interdependencies, working with relational and dialogic methodologies, supporting individuals and organisations in the tools and language of systems thinking. Food is one medium for this work, a particularly powerful one, because it connects us in so many ways.

Ashley believes food is a powerful tool to create meaningful connections between people, the living world and the systems in which we operate within.

Each experience is co-designed with who is commissioning it, its an adaptive ever-changing concept in itself. The principles, the menu, the participatory activities and the questions guests leave with can all be adapted to different settings. A How We Eat dinner for a group of food system researchers will feel different from one designed for an organisation at the start of a strategy process. The chef, the ingredients, the stories are all part of the details that make an experience unique, so no dinner is ever the same.

Chefs we work with

  • Steven Vick

    Head chef at Michelberger Restaurant in Berlin.

  • Felipe Castro

    Product Developer and Head Chef at Infinite Roots (formerly Mushlabs), Hamburg.

  • Josh Fine

    Sommelier at Bar Normal in Berlin. Josh has supported the project from day one.

  • Carly Feldman

    Holistic Health Coach & Chef, based in Berlin.

  • Kerran Kaur

    Chef and food consultant, founder of Seeds of Wild, based in London.

Farms and Farmers we learn from

  • Gut Haiderhof

    Hamburg, Germany

  • Buters Eko

    Gotland, Sweden

  • Löken Och Bönan

    Gotland, Sweden

  • Nama Yasai

    Lewes, UK

  • Tiny Farms

    Fürstenwalde, Germany

  • Michelberger Farm

    Spreewald, Germany

  • Benni’s Farm

    Oderin, Germany

Mentors, Advisors and Contributors

  • Saskia Rysenbry

    Creative advisor and co-host. Saskia was instrumental in the birth of How We Eat.

  • Jonathan Edelman

    Senior design strategist and early-stage product development director. Jonathan planted the first seed.

  • Adam Lusby

    Senior Lecturer in Entrepreneurship at Exeter University and Co-founder of InnoPlay. Co-founder of Regenovate.

  • Nadim Choucair

    Ecosystem thinking & mission oriented innovation, and facilitative consultant.

Support