Mediterranean Culinary Academy Chief Executive Officer, Kurt Mifsud, said that, moving forward, 'we will do things a bit differently.'

Many meetings will move into the virtual space and the outfit will retain some of the products created in response to the challenges the pandemic has meted out.

“When we noticed that the COVID-19 situation was serious, we first shut down all the activities which went against the principles of social distancing. This was done days before it was mandatory as we could see the writing on the wall and saw it coming.

“We then started brainstorming a strategy to keep moving forward despite these troubling times, and so, we came up with the concept of The Recipe Box,” he said, explaining that it consists of three recipes using locally-sourced ingredients, delivered to one’s door.

“We realised that providing people with a product that would be great value for money, easy to use, as well as support local farmers and producers, and be sustainable (with regards to packaging and sourcing of ingredients) was going to be key,” he explained.

In the future, any other changes are highly dependent on the industry, the CEO said, though he asserted his conviction that – across the board – the whole situation has made people re-evaluate how they do things and what is necessary and what isn’t.

“This not something, someone forgets quickly, and the habits people have formed during these past few months will not fade away as soon as restrictions are lifted,” he concluded.

This is an extract of an article which appeared in the May edition of The Malta Business Observer