On 9 May 2017, for a few hours, we deluded ourselves that Italy had become the center of the world and Milan the city destined to guide us into the future. Barack Obama had arrived, on his first public appearance after leaving the White House, and to hear his speech, more than a hundred television stations were connected.
He had come to Seeds & Chips, an event that so triumphantly reached its third edition. The promoter was Marco Gualtieri, already founder of a successful startup many years earlier, ticketone; then he was struck by the United Nations objectives for sustainable development to the point of investing everything in an event that aimed to turn the spotlight on a sector that did not yet exist at the time, food tech. That is the combination of food and technology to change the world and make it better (I know, the phrase sounds stale but it makes sense).
How Marco Gualtieri had managed to convince the president of the United States to make his first exit as an ex in Milan, was and remains a mystery. And in those days it was one of the most repeated questions: who knows how much he will have paid for it? Even Silvio Berlusconi one day took Gualtieri under his arm and said: “Can you tell me, Marco, how much did you give him to take him to Italy?”. Gualtieri never answered and not because there was something to hide but because no one would have believed him. In short, it was not a question of money that brought Obama to Italy. It is that as president he had come, precisely to Milan, on the occasion of the Expo dedicated to food; and here he had met Gualtieri and Gualtieri had met Sam Kass, who was not only the chef of the White House, but one of the best friends of the presidential couple and creator of Michelle Obama’s healthy change.
Gualtieri had asked Kass to intercede and on 4 July 2016 he had sent a message whose text read more or less: “The boss has accepted, he will come to Milan for Seeds & Chips”. Why had he accepted? Nobody really knows, but the evening before the highly anticipated speech, in a gala dinner at Palazzo Clerici, Obama took Gualtieri under his arm and said: “I want to tell you something: I’m here because I really believe that the themes of food and innovation are crucial for the future of the world; and also because I like the work you do to make young people stand out “. At least this is what Gualtieri remembers five years later.
In short, on the morning of the 9th the Fiera Milano Rho room was packed: in the front rows, in addition to the chefs Carlo Cracco and Davide Oldani, there was the secretary of the PD Matteo Renzi, who had recently left Palazzo Chigi and who had had the privilege of briefly meeting Obama the night before in a hotel (and from there they had called Macron to congratulate him on the elections won). The speech, which touched on various topics from tackling climate change to food waste, was much applauded as usual, Obama gives his best when he speaks; then he had talked on stage with Sam Kass himself until at a certain point, visibly tired, he had called the final applause saying that he had to go to eat with the family. Not before having received the keys to the city from Mayor Sala.
The New York Times noted that in the speech the former president had tried to insert a reference to Leonardo’s Last Supper that he had had time to visit before arriving at the fair (“Before I came here, I actually went to see Da Vinci’s Last Supper “).
Seeds and Chips went bankrupt in November 2020, overwhelmed not only by the effects of the pandemic. But she had planted several seeds which have grown in the meantime.