Who Are We?
Our Mission and Vision
What follows is a letter by Patrick Gaveau, director of this project, to all the Vietnamese Food Lovers out there.
Good morning ladies and gentlemen,
I’m going to talk to you about an idea, an idea that will evolve into something else – a movement.
Over the past month, my entire team and I have worked towards creating a vision, an identity. We’re making a platform that will serve as the fundamental tool to promote Vietnamese cuisine to the world. Thai food was popularised by the sois of Sukhumvit in Bangkok — their national football team was called the tom yum brigade. Korean food gained international popularity through one main side dish – kimchi. It became a buzzword in almost every aspect of pop culture. Today these dishes have become synonymous with their respective countries of origin.
In Vietnam, the only internationally recognised dish is pho, which ¾ of the world still pronounces as “foh”. But is pho the only thing representative of Vietnamese cuisine?
I don’t think so, and this is what led to my idea: to create a movement that combines all the elements of our project into one single entity — Vietnamese Food Lovers.
Vietnamese Food Lovers
We are going to launch Vietnamese Food Lovers as a website, a portal, a hashtag and, above all, a place for fellow culinary enthusiasts and food professionals across the world. VFL is the bridge that will connect people with Vietnamese food and will be the identifier that will showcase Vietnamese cuisine to the world.
The Golden Spoon Awards will be part of this, as a benchmark to be set and a prestige to be earned; the Vietnamese Food Festival, an extended campaign across the country, will also be organised under the portal and this is how Vietnamese Food Lovers will take shape. VFL will be an umbrella to all these initiatives, and celebrating Vietnamese food will be the mission we will all work towards.
This is an idea that needs plenty of support. Yes, it is ambitious, but if it’s executed well, it won’t just be a campaign or a project, it will be a revolution, the start of something much bigger than all of us — this is what will put Vietnamese cuisine on the world map, and it starts right here.