Ebru Baybara Demir

Keynote Speaker

Speaker Profile 

Chef Ebru Baybara Demir is the 2023 winner of the Basque Culinary World Prize (BCWP), known as the Nobel Prize of the gastronomy world. Chef Demir was also awarded the title of “World Food Hero” by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization in 2024. She became the first chef to bring these honored titles to Turkey with her 25 years of work focusing on soil, food and agriculture, and the solutions she produces from a gastronomy perspective, especially for social needs such as immigrant integration and local development.

Ebru Baybara Demir moved to Mardin in 1999 after completing her bachelor’s degree in Marmara University, Department of Tourism Management. Ebru Baybara Demir took the road to Mardin with a dream to meet the city with tourism and established the very first touristic restaurant in Mardin by the change she created, Cercis Murat Konağı, with 21 women who believed in her.  Demir, who has conducted extensive research on Anatolian cuisine for more than 20 years, has made many social gastronomy projects happen in the region, especially in Mardin, beyond being a chef, with the philosophy of "The taste of the meal on the table comes from the soil it takes and from the lives it benefits". Realizing the firsts in the field of social gastronomy with measurable results, Demir also draws attention to the creation of sustainable local economies from the protection of the natural balance of seed, soil and water in its projects, and the ability to create a livelihood for everyone who works from the process in which the product reaches the consumer from the soil. Chef Demir, under the roof of the Agricultural Development Cooperative from Soil to Plate, of which she is one of the founders, continues her work to create a role model in the national and international arena for the ideal cooperative model that brings together local products, local cuisine and local human resources. Cooperatives continue to work for local development with the reproduction of Sorgül Wheat, one of the oldest wheats of Mesopotamia, Şemim Soaps, e-commerce, the region's first zero waste and 6th sense restaurant Zamarot 1890, as well as new initiatives that will be launched in a short time. Ebru Baybara Demir’s another project named “Biodegradable Waste Management from Soil to Soil” is a regenerative agriculture project that includes improving the soil, supporting the farmer and contributing to the production of healthy food by transform the biodegradable food waste consisting of vegetables and fruits in the market into compost. Within the scope of the project, the usable foods collected in the marketplaces are brought to the soup kitchens and inspected under the supervision of a food engineer and are used with a 2-stage production as "Canned and Packaged Products" and "Hot Meal Production". She is the only Turkish Chef that her documentary “12 Zero-Waste Chefs of the World” was made by HBO Max.

Ebru Baybara Demir, who represented Turkey with project presentations at events hosted by various organizations from Europe to America, especially the United Nations and the European Union, was also deemed worthy of the Aenne Burda Creative Leadership Award at the DLD Munich Conference in 2023 and the grand prix by the President of Malta, HE Dr. George Vella, at the Mediterranean Tourism Forum.