Riccardo Astolfi is an Italian food and beverage innovator, writer and educator. He has spent the last 15+ years developing products and categories across plant-based, fermented and functional spaces and has become one of the leading voices on No/Lo culture in Italy. He is the author of No/Lo – Manifesto del Bere Senza Alcol, a book that explores alcohol-free drinks as a cultural, social and sensory choice rather than a compromise, and writes and curates two newsletters — No/Lo Bolo and Gastrocene — about contemporary food and drink.

His involvement with alcohol-free drinks spans education, product development and market analysis, and he works with producers, startups and established companies on the design of non-alcoholic beverages. He is a big fan of drinks where 'tradition is used as a starting point rather than a constraint' and his favourite categories are fermented drinks, aperitifs and bitters.

Somewhat ironically, despite spending most of his life working with food and drink, Riccardo is incapable of following a recipe to the letter — even at home. Mild improvisation, he believes, is 'an essential ingredient, both in fermentation and in life'.