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Melina Shannon-Dipietro on Empowering the Industry to Change the World Through MAD

Rectangle image with navy background of Melina Shannon-DiPietro

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About this episode

#80. In this episode of the meez Podcast, Josh Sharkey sits down with Melina Shannon-DiPietro, Executive Director of the MAD Foundation, to explore how MAD is transforming the hospitality industry through education, sustainability, and community-building. Melina, who has been at the helm of MAD since joining René Redzepi in Copenhagen, shares insights into how the organization is empowering chefs and food professionals to lead with purpose. From their groundbreaking MAD Academy programs, to MAD Mondays, To their incredible symposiums, Melina discusses how MAD is fostering a global network of food leaders committed to creating a more equitable and sustainable food system.

They dive into MAD’s efforts to address environmental challenges by equipping hospitality professionals with the tools and knowledge to make impactful changes in their kitchens and communities. Tune in to hear how MAD is helping chefs not just cook, but change the world.

Where to find Melina Shannon-DiPietro:

Where to find MAD

Where to find host Josh Sharkey:

What We Cover

(01:17): Melina's background

(13:54): How MAD helps

(19:12): How NOMA is involved in MAD

(22:03): MAD's academic courses

(26:14): What Melina is excited about

(31:28): Memories of MAD's impact

(33:57): MAD Symposium & MAD Monday

(39:07): Melina's day to day

(41:39): MAD in the future

(44:24): What Josh is excited about regarding meez

Transcript

[00:00:00] Melina Shannon DiPietro:

If we can help people leading teams in restaurants. get the basics right. If we can get good leadership in place and we can get good financials in place, then we go on and we can tackle environmental change.

[00:00:15] Josh Sharkey:

You're listening to season two of the meez podcast. I'm your host, Josh Sharkey, the founder and CEO of meez, a culinary operating system for food professionals.

[00:00:24]

On the show, we're going to talk to high performers in the food business, everything from chefs to CEOs, technologists, writers, investors, and more about how they innovate and operate and how they consistently execute at a high level day after day. And I would really love it if you could drop us a five star review anywhere that you listen to your podcast.

[00:00:44]

That could be Apple, that could be Spotify, could be Google. I'm not picky Anywhere works, but I really appreciate the support and as always, I hope you enjoy the show.

[00:00:57]

Melina, I know you from The High Line, and that's where we met, but I don't know, I actually have no idea where you were before that. What were you doing before The High Line, and then how the heck did you end up at MAD?

[00:01:07] Melina Shannon DiPietro:

Yeah, I feel so fortunate for the, uh, the ways my professional life has developed. So, I grew up in Albany, New York, and, um, you know, I, I never went to culinary school, and like so many of the people we, we work with, I was at university, but, Felt super at home when I was either in my job, my job prepping in a kitchen, or when I was during summers working out on farms.

[00:01:34]

And I had a consulting job after college and learned plenty about making businesses efficient. And I also realized that what I really wanted to work with was where my passions lie. And that was like very clearly food. It was very clearly agriculture, education, community building. And this was the early 2000s.

[00:01:55]

So there weren't, there were sort of restaurant jobs or there were education jobs. There were very few people doing those two things together.

[00:02:03] Josh Sharkey:

Where'd you go to school?

[00:02:04] Melina Shannon DiPietro:

I went to Harvard University.

[00:02:06] Josh Sharkey:

Oh, I've heard of that place.

[00:02:07] Melina Shannon DiPietro:

Yeah, that place. That place. Turns out there were two courses on food taught at Harvard and in the four years I was there, they were cancelled every time I tried to take some.

[00:02:18] Josh Sharkey:

Really? Yeah. I imagine there's more now. But there has to be more now.

[00:02:22] Melina Shannon DiPietro:

There are absolutely more, and part of that is because the field has shifted dramatically, right? We now understand that food is an important part of economies, of climate, of nutrition, at least in a way that we're willing to integrate into our education more actively, right?

[00:02:41]

Yeah. The job I had before I was at the High Line was at the Yale Sustainable Food Project, and that was when I started, it was a mandate, it was an idea only to figure out how the dining halls at Yale could serve local organic food to think about what it would mean if Yale students were excited about food and agriculture.

[00:03:04]

It had been started by Alice Waters, the chef from Berkeley and the then president of the university having a conversation one day. When Alice's daughter joined the school. And what I loved about that time was that I got to work with these incredible, both incredible students and incredible chefs from each of the dining halls.

[00:03:26]

They were putting out 8,000 meals a day. And what we were trying to figure out is how can you change the food system that is small liberal arts college.

[00:03:35] Josh Sharkey:

Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting because of the dichotomy of New Haven as well, right? Yeah. Just because Yale is. Like this pocket of, of the upper echelon of, you know, of colleges and demographic and people and then walk two blocks and.

[00:03:53]

Pretty impoverished. Yeah. Um, I'm curious if there was any sort of external work done like outside of the food system in, in Yale of like the, the neighborhood as well.

[00:04:02] Melina Shannon DiPietro:

So I think the university has taken very seriously a commitment to New Haven and partnering with a government, with the city government to make sure that New Haven remains, continues to become a better and better place to live for people, whether they work at the university or attend the university or not, and, um, what.

[00:04:23]

I loved was that our, we had a small acre, it was called the Yale farm. And that was created as a place for students to learn, to really get their hands in the soil, understand the soil. agriculture is, how to grow, how it's related to big questions around climate. But it was also a place that community members came.

[00:04:44]

And so it was a spot on university grounds where people, you know, from literally from both sides of the hill, we were, we were on a hill, one side, the wealthiest neighborhood in New Haven, the other side, the poorest neighborhood in New Haven, where those two communities were able to come together. This is, this is the power of food, right?

[00:05:01]

This is the power of bringing people together through food.

[00:05:04] Josh Sharkey:

Well, what, I mean, so you came from Albany and then you went to Harvard, what, why food? What, what brought you to the, to like get into the food, food scene?

[00:05:12] Melina Shannon DiPietro:

Great question. Does one ever know what causes their path truly? Um, but one answer is, grew up in a family where both sets of grandparents were farmers.

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