Danny McCubbin keynote speaker

Danny McCubbin left a long, successful 17-year career in London with chef and campaigner Jamie Oliver to move to Italy to rebuild a Sicilian community.

Danny worked as a mentor for Jamie’s Fifteen Apprentice programme and he also mentors for the world’s most successful drug rehabilitation community in Italy called San Patrignano.

He has spent years promoting food-focused social enterprises and helping diverse businesses create social value, with the belief that food has the power to transform lives.

Through his work, Danny has created a worldwide network of both small and large-scale social enterprises, sharing ideas, information and consulting on various food-focused projects, as well as fundraising, hosting supper clubs, and aiding collaboration between diverse communities.

Danny has been a judge on the well-respected Youth British Foodies Awards, been nominated for the Foodism 100 Positive Change Heroes, and collaborated on the hugely successful Cook For Syria campaign.

Danny is regularly asked to speak at international conferences on how food can be used as a tool for positive change. During the pandemic in 2020, Danny set up two Community Kitchens in London, one in a church in Notting Hill and the other with a charity called CDARS in Clapham Common. Danny worked with the major food rescue charities and during the first lockdown in London, the Community Kitchen provided over 2,000 meals a week to vulnerable people in North Kensington.

Danny founded and runs The Good Kitchen in Sicily that has gained recognition around the world. Every week Danny rescues surplus food from markets and he then uses that food to provide meals to vulnerable people in Mussomeli, Sicily. The kitchen has become a second home for many people in the town.