Podcast

Will America’s commercial kitchens go electric?

Meet the chef working to convince the U.S. culinary industry to ditch gas.

On The Carbon Copy podcast this week:

Around the U.S., cities are passing laws to phase fossil gas out of buildings. But the culinary industry is pushing back, saying that gas bans hurt chefs and restaurant owners. This week, a lawsuit brought by the California Restaurant Association resulted in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals overturning the city of Berkeley’s pioneering gas ban.

Chef and entrepreneur Chris Galarza is on a mission to convince culinary professionals that industrial induction cooking is far superior to gas. He’s the founder of Forward Dining Solutions, a company that focuses on kitchen electrification. Chris formerly served as the head chef at Chatham University’s Eden Hall campus, where all cooking is electric.

Veteran journalist Miles O’Brien interviewed Chef Galarza for a new Nova documentary airing this month called Chasing Carbon Zero.

This week, we look at the story of one chef’s quest to bring induction cooking to commercial and industrial kitchens around the country. We talk with Miles about what he found in that electric kitchen at Chatham University — and why Chef Galarza thinks induction will soon dominate, even with challenges from the restaurant lobby.

In the second half of the episode, we’ll talk about the bigger shifts in broadcast journalism around telling the climate story. Miles is the science correspondent at the PBS NewsHour and a former CNN anchor who has shifted his journalistic focus toward climate solutions. Can TV news rise to the challenge?

The Carbon Copy is supported by FischTank PR, a public relations, strategic messaging and social media agency dedicated to elevating the work of climate and clean energy companies. Learn more about FischTank’s approach to cleantech and their services: fischtankpr.com.

The Carbon Copy is brought to you by Sungrow. Now in more than 150 countries, Sungrow’s solutions include inverters for utility-scale, commercial and industrial solar, plus energy storage systems. Learn more at us.sungrowpower.com.