Nestled among vineyard-covered hills, baroque facades, and the faint, almost ceremonial scent of white truffles, Bra feels less like a town than a threshold.
A place where something slow, deliberate, and deeply considered still shapes everyday life.
It is here, in the heart of Piedmont, that one of the most influential ideas in contemporary food culture quietly took root: that food is not merely what we eat, but how we understand the world.
Just a few minutes away lies a university that extends this idea into an academic form. In Pollenzo, education begins not with disciplines, but with questions: how do food systems function, who do they serve, and what kind of future are they quietly building?
Pollenzo: A University with an Unconventional Perspective
Arriving at the campus of the University of Gastronomic Sciences in Pollenzo, there is an immediate sense of conceptual displacement. The rhythms are slower, but the intellectual temperature is high.
Founded in 2004 by Carlo Petrini together with the regions of Piedmont and Emilia-Romagna, the university emerged from the philosophy of the Slow Food movement. Yet it has since developed into something broader: one of the few academic institutions in the world dedicated entirely to gastronomic sciences.Here, food is not treated as cuisine or commodity alone. It is examined as ecology, economics, communication, agriculture, politics, and culture – simultaneously.
What emerges is not a vocational training ground, but a worldview under construction.
Students move between lectures on supply chains and biodiversity, seminars on food policy and climate systems, and field visits that take them directly to producers and agricultural landscapes. Knowledge is not contained within walls; it is constantly negotiated with reality.
An International Community in a Small Town
Despite its scale, the campus carries an unusual density of perspectives.
Students from more than 100 countries converge here, bringing with them food traditions shaped by radically different climates, histories, and economies. Conversations move fluidly between continents: Latin American biodiversity projects, European agricultural policy, fisheries in Southeast Asia.
The result is not diversity as ornament, but diversity as method.
Food is not romanticised. It is analysed, sometimes deconstructed, and always re-situated within the systems that produce it.
Meet Nicola Perullo, the Rector of the University of Gastronomic Sciences
To better understand the philosophy behind the university, we had the opportunity to speak with Nicola Perullo, the Rector of the university. In a conversation about sustainability, education and the future of food, he shared his perspectives on the challenges and opportunities that will shape the next generation.
Courtesy Nicola Perullo
Kindly, he agreed to answer some key questions.
The University of Gastronomic Sciences was founded long before sustainability became a global buzzword. Looking back, which of its original ideas have proven most visionary, and which challenges surrounding food concern you most today?
The University of Pollenzo was born out of the philosophy of Slow Food and thanks to the vision of Carlo Petrini, who, together with an initially small group of professors, established the first degree programmes of our university.
The originality and uniqueness of Pollenzo on the global stage are rooted precisely in this unconventional genesis and in the awareness that a comprehensive academic education in the field of Gastronomic Sciences was needed.
The University of Pollenzo thus responded to an educational need that had not previously existed, anticipating both the times and broader cultural trends. We were true avantgarde: designing and implementing programmes and courses was at once a visionary and a pragmatic undertaking.
Video via University of Gastronomic Sciences of Pollenzo on YouTube
Today, we continue to be pioneers in the sense that Gastronomic Sciences – by which we mean a field encompassing everything from agricultural and food production to consumption, as well as the histories and cultures of food – remain the “elephant in the room” within education at all levels.
Although officially recognised within the Italian higher education system as a degree class since 2017, Gastronomic Sciences are absent from many university curricula and entirely absent from secondary education.
There is still a need to raise awareness of the essential centrality of food to human and non-human life on our planet.
Today, Pollenzo celebrates its 22nd anniversary. The challenge that lies ahead is to preserve the pioneering spirit, the original vision, and the philosophy that have inspired us from the very beginning, while continuing to grow in terms of projects, partnerships, and institutional and academic relationships at both the national and international levels.
Students from all over the world come to Pollenzo and Bra to study. What do you think they find at UNISG that they might not find at a more traditional university?
The Pollenzo campus welcomes students from more than 100 countries. This international presence is not merely an additional feature; it is a fundamental component of UNISG’s educational model. The diversity of backgrounds, food cultures, and perspectives forms an integral part of the academic experience and contributes directly to the quality of the educational journey.
Studying on a daily basis in a multicultural environment means engaging with different food systems, gastronomic practices, and deeply rooted food cultures. It offers continuous exposure to a wide range of perspectives on food and its role in society.
This represents a form of learning that complements and enriches classroom teaching in ways that are difficult to replicate elsewhere.
Food is associated with pleasure, yet it is increasingly connected to issues such as climate change, biodiversity loss and social responsibility. How does the university prepare students to navigate this balance between enjoyment and responsibility?
Pollenzo teaches how to combine pleasure and responsibility: it is possible to conceive a different kind of pleasure in food – one based on sharing and on caring for it responsibly, for ourselves and for others, within an intergenerational and ecological chain of transmission.
Moreover, an integral part of our approach is “action learning,” which provides direct contact with the realities of the food system. By leaving the classroom, students encounter food systems and their actors in real-world contexts, developing knowledge through experience.
In this way, pleasure is not tied to a mere act of consumption, but becomes part of a broader process that enhances critical thinking, collaborative skills, and the ability to competently address the challenges of the global food system.
If you could leave every graduate with just one lesson about food and life before they leave UNISG, what would it be?
Pollenzo is a university, but it is a mission-driven university with a strong cultural and philosophical project. Its task is to contribute – through education and, for each individual according to their abilities, sensitivities, and knowledge – to a continuous process of social, political, and cultural regeneration. At the center of this vision is a new form of “hospitable humanity”: one that welcomes others, but is also responsible for the planet that hosts it, Mother Earth.
Our mission is to create a framework of meaning that can guide the future – both the professional and existential paths – of our graduates. And this, I believe, is the most important lesson that Pollenzo has to offer its graduates.
Bra: Where Everyday Life and Food Culture Meet
Bra moves at a different register – unhurried, but not static.
In its piazzas, students sit alongside winemakers, producers speak with visitors, and conversations stretch long into the evening. Markets, tastings, and shared meals form the texture of daily life.
Here, pleasure is not framed as indulgence but as attention: a practice of noticing origin, process, and time.
The Legacy of Slow Food
It feels almost inevitable that the Slow Food movement was born here in Bra.
What began in the 1980s as a local response to industrialized eating has since evolved into a global philosophy advocating food that is good, clean, and fair.
Video via Slow Food on YouTube
Today, Slow Food movement and the university remain bound by a shared conviction: that food is never only consumption, but always education, responsibility, and identity.
A University for the Future
At a time when higher education is increasingly defined by specialization, Pollenzo insists on synthesis.
Food becomes the intersection of ecology, culture, medicine, economics, and politics – a field defined less by boundaries than by connections.
This is why the university feels unusually contemporary. The defining challenges of the present – climate change, biodiversity loss, resource scarcity, food security – do not begin in abstract systems.
They begin on plates.
Bra and Pollenzo are therefore not simply places in Piedmont. They function as a working hypothesis: that how we study food may ultimately shape how we live.
Biographical information on Nicola Perullo, Rector of the University of Gastronomic Sciences in Pollenzo
Nicola Perullo is a philosopher and essayist, as well as a full professor of Aesthetics. He studied with Aldo G. Gargani in Pisa and with Jacques Derrida in Paris. Over the past 20 years, he has developed research and studies on the philosophy of food and taste, the aesthetics of perception, the relationship between ethics and aesthetics, and ecology.
VENUE DETAILS
University of Gastronomic Sciences / Università di Scienze Gastronomiche
Piazza Vittorio Emanuele II, 9
12042 Pollenzo CN
Italia
Tel: +39 0172 458 511
PHOTO CREDITS
- All photos courtesy University of Gastronomic Sciences, unless otherwise credited
- Videos as credited
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