Our partners play a fundamental role in bringing about a sustainable food transition. They are passionate people ahead of the curve. They push forward towards new sustainable solutions through innovative technology, smarter processes or by engaging people on this journey. In their daily transition work, they get direct feedback on whether we are on the right path, who is needed and in what role. With that feedback, we in return can encourage, engage and nudge other frontrunners to adapt. Here are some examples of frontrunners making steps together in practice. Because we think the food transition is, above all, about taking steps in practice. Whether that is through entrepreneurship, research or in another role.
Anna has been growing chickpeas with her husband Peter since 2021. She is a board member of the Producer Organisation Protein Farmers of the Netherlands, established in 2022, created on the initiative of Foodvalley NL.
"Besides the good harvest in 2022, the Protein Farmers of the Netherlands and my new protein farmer friends circle are the biggest gift of the year," Anna says.
"The recently created Upcycling Community of the Foodvalley network is a great resource to meet with other pioneers in the Upcycling movement across the whole food value chain, and collaborate to find solutions to the barriers to change from linear to circular design.
I am confident that the collective knowledge and expertise in the community will help speed up the development and adoption of new circular ingredients, food and beverages and business models."
"The biggest roadblock we must tackle together for the food transition is to be able to locally produce sustainable food and ingredients in a cost-efficient way.
This requires more financial investments in smart, technically innovative solutions throughout the whole food chain from “seed to eat”, so to speak. Change in an industry does not happen with just one party, it requires collaboration along the whole food chain whether that is locally or globally."
"The biggest roadblock we have is to ensure that we make new agreements with each other throughout the food value chain, based on what is best for the world, for the people who live in it and based on complete openness.
Most of the necessary innovations are social innovation. Don't forget SMEs, these entrepreneurs change and adapt very easily."
"Foodvalley has a unique strength in pushing the food transition forward. It can bring together many parties in the food chain, to discover blocks and to collectively take these hurdles out of the way.
This is only possible as a group. And the Foodvalley team is a good guide."
"For me, it’s important to break habits to develop the future. Knowing that movement requires change and change requires the ability to consider something different, something new, something to give a try.
These changes can be made by working on an innovation pipeline of, for instance, processes and products, but there are many more roads to change. This can be seen as your system approach and vision to include the whole."
"Multidisciplinary collaboration is key. Everyone has their part in this. As a physician, mine is to raise urgency. Our diet underlies a pandemic of chronic diseases. Our nutrition now contains too many fats, sugars and salt. For us as humans, the cheapest and most desirable ingredients from an evolutionary perspective. Hard to resist, therefore. My patients just need support. Foodvalley as an independent party, brings disciplines together and makes conversation possible. There are knowledge gaps and contradictions. And we can only solve this pandemic with a multidisciplinary approach."
"When it comes to nutrition and health, everyone in the field must take responsibility. Too often we point at each other and wait till other parties move first. Why? Misunderstanding, or a mindset of fixing things on your own... I think we can make a difference by stepping into the ring and making a move together. Building our own strengths and helping others so that pieces strongly fit together. That's the way to achieve a serious breakthrough."
Accelerating change is about doing. There must be a problem first of all. Working on it creates collaboration. Because alone we cannot solve this huge challenge on F&H. Working together is faster. Foodvalley helps accelerating together from a practical point of view. A great example is the VIPS pilot, where care workers and later clients are testing PN solutions. The strength of Foodvalley F&H is that they can put together such a coalition that is able to research new earning potential.
"I joined one year ago, and I have learned so much about the basics of plant-based protein and the players. And the good thing is, it is a low entry to get connected to people.
At this point, we are even doing tests with people from The Protein Community."
"We are with many companies in the The Protein Community. Sometimes we are competitors, but we also have a common goal: we all want to develop the plant-based market.
If we think we can do it alone, we aren’t thinking big enough. We need each other to develop a market."
Source: ©Foodvalley
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