The Grand Prix of Gastronomic Culture awarded to Institut Paul Bocuse

This year, we have chosen to award this Grand Prix to the Institut Paul Bocuse as it disseminates French hotel and gastronomic know-how nationwide and internationally through a multi-disciplinary approach centered on excellence. Your school thus follows in the footsteps of UNESCO.
Jacques Mallard, Vice President of the International Academy of Gastronomy.

Safeguarding and developing regional and national cultures and culinary heritages is the objective that the International Academy of Gastronomy has set for itself since its creation in 1983. Today, present in 20 countries, it attributes the Grand Prix of Gastronomic Culture each year to a territory, region or city, recognized as a “great place for gastronomy” or to an individual or an institution that has particularly distinguished itself through its defense of gastronomic heritage that now belongs to the cultural domain.

The honor that you bestow upon us today by awarding Institut Paul Bocuse with the Grand Prix of Gastronomic Culture enables us to recognize the work accomplished by two exceptional men: Paul Bocuse, our Founder, and Gérard Pélisson, who has been Chairman of the Board since 1998. It took their courage and determination to enable us to become what we are today. It is great encouragement to pursue our mission through our teaching dynamics: anchored in the tradition of the trade and open to managerial modernity. I like to recall the exactness of what the historian, Pascal Ory, has said, “Gastronomy is neither the love of food, nor haute cuisine. It is the regulation (nomos) of eating and drinking, transformed in this way into the arts of the table.”
Hervé Fleury, CEO of the Institut Paul Bocuse.

Today, more than 1,600 graduates from 22 countries from around the world have become artisans of taste, who preserve and develop the richness, multiplicity and complexity of gastronomy.