An encounter of excellence: Argotec Space Food Lab and Berto’s

Being the first Italian woman to be part of a European Space Agency crew and holder of the women's world record for the longest stay in space, Milan-born Samantha Cristoforetti needs no introduction

Engineer (graduated in Monaco and specialised in Texas), scientist, pilot and multilingual (fluent in five languages): it is thanks to her that we were able to see magnificent photos and exciting footage of our planet on TV and Social Media for 200 days. On June 11th of this year, Samantha returned to Earth, landing in Kazakhstan, and her first words as she set foot on the ground were "the first things I'll do will be to sleep in a real bed and eat a salad”. But what do today’s astronauts actually eat when they are in space? Forget the stereotypes that lead us to imagine them eating preposterously coloured pills and indigestible mush. Today they eat food that is cooked on Earth, processed and packaged to last 18 to 24 months in a zero gravity environment and at room temperature; foods without preservatives that offer the same colours and flavours of the food that we eat daily on Earth. In Samantha’s case these foods were cooked in Turin, using a Berto's S900 professional kitchen that was installed with the support of the supplier DBS S.r.l at the Argotec Space-Food Lab, the Company appointed by the European Space Agency to take care of the nutritional aspect of its astronauts living at zero gravity (one of the chefs who took part in this project was Stefano Polato, who comes from the city of Monselice in the Province of Padua, just a few kilometres from our headquarters in Tribano). The Argotec-Berto's union is a winning encounter of excellence, bringing together the research, experimentation and science of the Space-Food Lab, and the technology, safety, versatility and innovation of Berto's. A window into the future therefore, although judging from the photos that we have published alongside, showing the preparation of food for the European Space Agency astronauts in Turin, with meat, vegetables, fruit and pastries in the hands of the chefs, it is as if we are looking at a scene from daily life; one that is reassuring and very terrestrial.