Healthy Eating: MAAF’s Taste and Health Award Final Nears

The 2025 edition of the “Taste and Health Award for Artisans” has entered its final stretch. In October 2025, for the grand finale, the Michelin-starred chef Thierry Marx will welcome, in his Parisian school “Cuisine Mode d’Emploi(s)”, twelve artisans of the culinary trades from across France.

Reconciling Nutritional Quality with Culinary Pleasure

Each contestant will perform live a healthy and delicious recipe, in one of the four categories of the national competition: savory, sweet, to take away or to preserve. A jury chaired by Thierry Marx will designate four winners, one per category: each will receive 5,000 euros and will benefit from a national promotion of their savoir-faire.

Organized by MAAF since 2003 in partnership with CMA France, the Taste and Health Prize for Artisans aims to reconcile the two meanings of “eating well”: offering balanced recipes, crafted with products possessing recognized nutritional virtues, while exciting the palate with subtle and original flavors.

Promoting Health Prevention: An Essential Priority for MAAF

This competition reflects the values dear to MAAF, the historic insurer of artisans, committed to health prevention. The deleterious consequences of an unbalanced diet are well known – obesity, cardiovascular problems, cancers, aggravation of chronic diseases… Addressing these issues proves far more difficult, painful, and costly than preventing them.

Conversely, a healthy and varied diet is one of the pillars of a resilient body. Yet culinary pleasure is still often associated with products that are too fatty, sugary or salty. To change this, nothing beats a collection of dishes that are both delicious and balanced: since 2021, MAAF has published the award-winning recipes to make them accessible to everyone.

Who Are the Twelve Finalists of the 2025 Artisans’ Taste and Health Prize?

On June 19, 2025, the pre-jury chaired by Thierry Marx designated the twelve finalists. All offer dishes rich in beneficial contributions, combining local and seasonal products, known for their role in preventing certain diseases.

Healthy Snack and Shellfish Preserves

Thus, in the category “Preservable Recipes”, Tony Suaud, master chocolatier from Saint Gelais (79), will present a chocolate-hazelnut biscuit, low in sugar and gluten-free, designed as a healthy alternative to snacks from mass retailers. Nicolas Chiron, pastry chef in Plescop (56), will prepare his spider crab and langoustine ravioli with tarragon, accompanied by a broccoli velouté with toasted buckwheat seeds. Finally, Antoine Spitz, associate manager of the Conserverie du Rhin in Niederhergheim (68), will unveil a carp and crayfish preserve paired with a roasted pumpkin tapenade.

Playful Snack, Specialty Bread and Fast-Food 2.0

The “Recipes to Take Away” showcase originality. Florence Daübe, entrepreneur from Montferrat (38), will offer a playful snack in the shape of a pineapple, consisting of a carrot waffle, a reduced-sugar spread, and a fresh kiwi cut into leaf shapes. The Lyon-based baker Emmanuel Tessier will prepare his signature bread, combining three different fermentations (umami, koji and malt). The 2024 laureate in the category “Savory Recipe,” Angélique Monnier, a catering artisan in Cesson-Sévigné (35), will revisit fast food this time with a fish-head terrine crowned with seaweed jam, served on gluten-free bread and accompanied by roasted potatoes.

Fish in All Its Forms

The “Savory Recipes” place fish at the forefront, starting with a flame-grilled mackerel, with beetroot, yogurt, and kumquat, presented in a burst of colors by Alexis Buquet, private chef in Banyuls-sur-Mer (66). Beetroot again to accompany haddock and lait ribot prepared by Marie-Anne Lacomblez, home chef in Lille (59). Finally, Louis Festa, chef in Saint-Astier (24), will reinterpret the terroir of Périgord with his sturgeon from the Isle valley, served with walnuts and mushrooms.

Healthy, Fruity and Foamy Desserts

To finish, the “Sweet Recipes” will propose three healthy and delicious desserts: a tart with black lemon and black sesame, conceived and prepared by Camille Crohin, pastry chef in Angers (49); a cake based on biscuits and entremets, pairing strawberry, sea buckthorn, and ginger, prepared by Robert Perneki, pastry chef in Saintes (17); and finally the Ismahan entremet, “at the crossroads of Berber tradition and contemporary plant-based pastry”, imagined by Parisian pastry chef Sarah Emtir.

This 2025 edition of the “Taste and Health Prize” by MAAF will grant each of these artisans, laureates or not, well-deserved visibility. All contribute to reinventing our culinary traditions with dishes that deftly blend indulgence, ethics, and nutritional consciousness.