Co-Founder and President of Gastromotiva, Named Charles Bronfman Prize 2019 Recipient

David Hertz, a chef and social entrepreneur who pioneered a model that uses food to improve the lives of low-income people, is the 2019 recipient of the Charles Bronfman Prize, announced on Sept. 5. 

In 2006, Hertz co-founded Gastromotiva, a Brazilian-based, socio-gastronomic organization that fights unemployment and social inequality. He said in a statement to the Journal it uses food waste as a tool to “create opportunities for those living on the margins of society.”

Hertz’s experience working in a kibbutz kitchen as an 18-year-old started a journey that inspired him to develop projects to help youth and the vulnerable.

“It’s a tremendous honor to be the recipient of the Charles Bronfman Prize for 2019,” the 45-year-old chef said. “I feel responsible to represent social entrepreneurs who are promoting Jewish values beyond our community, increasing the knowledge about how food and social gastronomy can address the most pressing issues of our planet and transcend geography, class, background and religion.”

The Charles Bronfman Prize is an annual award of $100,000 presented to a humanitarian younger than 50 whose innovative work, informed by Jewish values, has significantly improved the world. 

“We are privileged to honor David to help amplify his important work,” prize co-founder Ellen Bronfman Hauptman said in a statement on behalf of the four founders. “He takes his place among the exceptional Prize laureates each of whom has tackled a key problem of our day with transformative solutions.”

Hertz said that “while a third of food is wasted, we have almost 1 billion people living with chronic hunger and 200 million unemployed workers around the globe.” He added that Gastromotiva, provides “free vocational kitchen training, entrepreneurial classes and nutrition classes across Brazil, El Salvador, South Africa and Mexico, and we are expanding.”

During the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Hertz opened Refettorio Gastromotiva to serve meals to vulnerable, often homeless populations, “in a welcoming space that encourages dialogue and companionship.”

The woman who nominated Hertz, Devry Boughner Vorwerk — a fellow Young Global Leader, partner in the social gastronomy movement and former corporate vice president of Cargill — wrote: “David has taken something that could remain a small, community effort and has connected that effort to a global movement.”