Featured Personality Joan, Josep and Jordi Roca are the three pillars of El Celler de Can Roca, a restaurant with 3 Michelin stars and considered the best restaurant in the world by the magazine The World’s 50 Best Restaurants on two occasions. We talk to Joan and Josep Roca about their origins, their values and their relationship with water What do you think the Roca brothers have in common with the sanitary ware brand Roca, apart from the name? Joan: El Celler de Can Roca and Roca are two companies that share many values, they originated in the same region and they also share the name but, above all, they share a commitment to quality, innovation and creativity. Josep: Both companies are based on family tradition, with a style that remains beyond any fashion, but which does not disregard growth, improvement and innovation. Our creativity process has different origins. We have certain creative principles with 16 starting points and based on them we obtain all our combinations. With Roca we share the idea of innovation, of cross-directional approach, of learning from other creative disciplines, being attentive to avant-garde trends and in conclusion, to everything happening in our history: memory, tradition, products of our region and also our landscape. What has been your experience with the cooperation projects of your foundation? Josep: We have been United Nations Goodwill Ambassadors for the Sustainable Development Goals and Action against Hunger since 2015. This is an activity that so far has generated the possibility of food conservation in an agricultural area of Nigeria, north of the capital Abuya, where we are training farmers and, above all, women so that they are able to establish the guidelines we provide them in terms of preserving food such as tomatoes, an important source of production, so that they can have a better diet. How can gastronomy help Josep: Water is an essential element, it is life. In our understanding that together we can help diminish those restaurant, there is an absolute need to combine all elementsdistances, so that this separation and this inequality are to raise awareness of the with water. It is a flow of communication in which there not so evident. importance of water? are solids and liquids. It is the base of our cuisine, of our ingredients and we have to owe it respect. What do you think of the initiative Josep: We will be obliged to show more and more this environmental awareness in our restaurants by means of carried out by the We Are Water different aspects. One of them is the water footprint. We areHow do you perceive the inequalities Foundation? starting to take action to reduce it by measuring very preciselyfound around the world with regard the amounts of water we use, or thinking carefully before Josep: We Are Water is an example, a window to look at a opening taps in a carefree way and optimizing resources as to water? better world. It is an opportunity to understand that important much as possible to cook in a more balanced way but also companies have an important role in the most ethical more fairly with the water footprint. Josep: Our privileged situation allows us to travel and observe gastronomy from different approaches and also version of the world; that the responsibility of conscience the customs, the cultures of water use. The level of well- corresponds to more people that we can imagine and that What is the meaning of water for being we have in developed regions and the difficulties the entrepreneurship, innovation and talent tools linked El Celler de Can Roca? present in places where water is really scarce is extremely to creativity can also be used for a better world. A world surprising. You can also see how… it might be like travelingdevoted to water, from water and for water to achieve, in Joan: We are all water. As a chef I would like to contributeback centuries, something incomprehensible in our current short, a better world for people. to raise awareness of water preservation, by optimizing suchsociety, where you can find all kinds of communication an important resource and, above all, we need to be able to methods, although water is not always available. It is share it so that everyone can have access to it. therefore a feeling of helplessness, of hardness, of Roca Sanitario, S.A. Avda. Diagonal, 513 08029 Barcelona - Spain Telephone +34 93 366 1200 www.roca.com 8102 anolecraB .A.S ,oiratinaS acoR ©