From January 7 – February 8, Food+Tech Connect and The Future Market are hosting Biodiversity: The Intersection of Taste & Sustainability, an editorial series featuring interviews with over 45 leading food industry CEOs, executives, farmers, investors and researchers on the role of biodiversity in the food industry. See the full list of participants and read about why biodiversity in food is important here. 

Smart capital and innovation ecosystems that prize diversity are key to creating a regenerative, biodiverse future at scale. For Food System 6 (FS6), a non-profit accelerator that helps food and agriculture entrepreneurs and organizations accelerate their growth and impact, both genetic diversity among plants and animals and cultural diversity in the entrepreneurial ecosystem are critical to creating regenerative food systems.

Below I speak with Renske Lynde, co-founder and managing director, about the incubator’s holistic approach to supporting innovation among farmers, producers and entrepreneurs. True systems change, she argues, requires long term investment from investors, foundations and VCs. Current capital structures could scale biodiverse and regenerative agricultural systems, they just require more patience and greater investment in infrastructure and processing.

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Danielle Gould: Is biodiversity a priority for Food System 6? If so, how and why?

Renske Lynde: Biodiversity is the cornerstone of a healthy, thriving ecosystem; therefore addressing biodiversity is one of the fundamental facets of building a healthier food system for all, which is our core mission at Food System 6.

We take a view that all levels of biodiversity – genetic, species and ecosystem – are critical to the thriving, interconnected and complex system that makes life on earth possible. For us, creating a Sixth Food System is about ensuring that the planet can continue to sustain future generations and we believe that biodiversity moves beyond sustainability and, as such, is foundational to building regenerative systems.

DG: How does Food System 6 define and think about biodiversity?

RL: Biodiversity is a multifaceted issue within the FS6 program, as we focus our curriculum around the interconnectedness of each of the complex factors influencing the overall ecosystem. In an attempt to simplify an inherently complex issue, we can break the FS6 perspective into two distinct, yet deeply interrelated categories: genetic diversity amongst plants and animals and cultural biodiversity throughout the entrepreneur ecosystem.

The first issue – plant and animal biodiversity – is one that has been gaining traction across the food ecosystem recently. With the increased selection and hybridization of organisms for traits like stability and growth, much of the industrial food system has de-prioritized previously crucial elements like nutrient density. As our food’s ability to nourish us diminishes, larger quantities are needed to fulfill us, and more additives are necessary to supplement for flavor. Not to mention the increased use of chemicals and hormones necessary to maintain the health of an increasingly fragile genetic ecosystem. We have traded in traits like natural pest resistance and immunity for more commercially attractive attributes like growth rates and product size.

From monocropping to genetic modification selective breeding, we are jeopardizing our ability to have an adaptive and regenerative food system, even as we watch the world around us change drastically and with increasing speed. On the bright side, there is a growing trend in innovation to focus on this issue through the breeding and selection of heritage breed plants and animals. Companies like Emmer & Co, Row 7, Sfoglini and Heritage Foods are playing an important role in bringing the conversation of genetic diversity to the table.

Perhaps a more nuanced, but equally important aspect of this conversation, is that of diversity within the entrepreneurial landscape. The biodiversity of community is just as essential to healthy ecosystem growth as genetic diversity is to the long-term viability of agricultural crops. Core to our program is the understanding that economically, racially and culturally diverse ecosystems build richer and more robust environments for innovation. The research is continuing to show that diverse organizations have increased productivity and profit, broader networks and advanced consumer insights; additionally, diverse teams have been shown to iterate faster and smarter than their competition. There has also proven to be a strong connection between native communities worldwide (who tend to have a stronger connection to natural systems) and those that are actively focused on promoting biodiversity. Companies such as Tanka Bar, Native Harvest and Extensio are examples of solutions that address both sides of the equation by supporting marginalized communities and creating market opportunities for biodiverse, culturally relevant products.

DG: What is Food System 6 doing or planning to do to promote biodiversity?

RL: Farmers have long evolved crops to produce an amazing diversity of plants that are naturally pest resilient and capable of producing life-sustaining nutrition. It is our mission to surface and support those who are doing so in a holistic and systems-focused manner. Thus, the FS6 portfolio supports a culturally, racially and socially diverse selection of farmers, producers and entrepreneurs who are innovating around the ideas of regeneration in the food and agriculture ecosystem.

DG: What is the business case for products that promote a more biodiverse food system?

RL: The business case is simple: without biodiversity, we will see the extinction of our food system as we know it … and we are already seeing signs of the collapse. Monoculture production has become a global hazard for all and, as such, addressing biodiversity is much more about making a case for humanity’s survival than it is about food politics. As the climate warms and weather patterns become more severe, we will continue to see even greater crop damage and loss. Increasingly, we are seeing that companies have recognized that sustainability matters and that protecting and promoting biodiversity is a necessary next step in securing supply chains in a quickly changing world. However, the major players can (and need to) play a bigger role in reversing the damage caused by monoculture production by building diverse supply chains that mitigate against losses. We must adopt new models for business that take into consideration the true cost to the environment and its inhabitants.

As an example, investing in factory farming has become a value destructive decision because we know that poor animal welfare leads to an array of major supply chain problems like swine flu or fraud. By examining the opportunities to invest in solutions that promote species and production diversity, we can secure supply chain investments that may have a longer horizon but over time lead to value creation across the entire production and consumption value chain.

DG: What investments need to be made to create a more biodiverse food system?

RL: There is significant work happening in agroecology and wildlife conservation to create more biodiverse ecosystems. There are many Native American Tribes working to save diverse seeds and bring these indigenous products to the market. We are seeing new and safer technologies for seed breeding and hybridizations; agronomists are identifying wild seeds that are suitable for small and medium scale cultivation. Regenerative and biodynamic farming practices are becoming a part of large food companies land holdings – albeit on a very small scale. Heritage animal breeds are being revived as their benefit to habitat reconstruction and overall role in a healthy ecosystem and diet becomes better understood (more specifically, for their nutrient density and role they play in grassland reconstruction).

With all of these innovations in the ecosystem, we need to take a less reductionist and extractive approach to investing in, and creating new, ecosystem-based markets. For instance, quinoa – the beloved superfood from the Andes, has seen a sharp rise in demand over the last 20 years, leading farmers to abandon the nearly 3,000 varieties that farmers have developed over centuries of cultivation – in favor of a few to satisfy the export market. It is untenable farming practices like this that endanger the seeds and plants that are essential to life. Investments need to take a holistic view regarding the assets and resources that are required to enable biodiversity to flourish and we need to see more investment in the infrastructure and processing elements that will support biodiverse foods. One of the ways that this can happen is by focusing on and investing in right-sized innovation in the food and agriculture space, rather than furthering the practices that produce higher yields for a only a handful of crop species. This requires us to think about innovation beyond the emerging technologies that are sexy and exciting and to focus instead on building solutions that address the needs of small to medium scale production and regenerative applications.

DG: How might we reinvent capital structures or create incentives to create more investment in biodiversity?

We don’t necessarily need to reinvent capital – if leveraged in the right way, the current capital infrastructure can be used – we just need to start investing in some of the products and services that are in alignment with these objectives around biodiversity. Ultimately, what we need is for the gatekeepers of philanthropic capital to start leveraging their knowledge and networks in order to support and scale innovations that are building biodynamic and regenerative practices. If the traditional investors, foundations, and VCs could join forces, we could revitalize our capital infrastructure to support the complex needs and longer ROI cycles of regenerative agriculture. The philanthropic leaders who have been advocating for biodiversity should be supporting these companies and engaging in market-based solutions to scale them; the investor community should be revising their metrics of success in order to accommodate for the more holistic returns associated with regenerative investment opportunities.

From a policy perspective, we need an increase in the incentivizes and mechanisms that promote these kinds of shifts in production – as we have seen around the conversation of soil health in California. We need to expand policy dialogue, across the board, to include incentives that promote biodiversity.

DG: What are some of the most important things investors, food manufacturers, retailers and other key actors across the supply chain can do to support biodiversity?

RL: Players in the food space need to challenge the assumption that biodiverse production systems cannot scale or feed the world. We need to recognize the importance of diversity within the entrepreneur, investor, and farmer ecosystem and to interact with all stakeholders to advance change; where this is not possible, we need to support the kinds of intermediaries that function at the edges of the stakeholder ecosystem to help support innovation with these goals in mind.  Lastly, we need to stop investing in innovations that do not prioritize impact and transformation.

DG: Are there certain products you would like to see more of in the food industry — either in foodservice or CPG — that would help promote a more biodiverse agricultural system?

RL: The biggest step that we could take in the direction of a more biodiverse ecosystem would be to increase the diversity of all staple crops and bring back genetic diversity of grains. Adjacent to that, we need to promote the proliferation of heirloom varietals and animals and integrate them into products that the consumer will be able to find on the average grocery store shelf.

Read all of the interviews here and learn more about Biodiversity at The Future Market.

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Renske Lynde, Co-founder and Managing Director of Food System 6

Renske Lynde has worked in the non-profit sector on food, agriculture and nutrition policy issues for nearly 20 years.  Her work has included grassroots education and community organizing, strategic campaign development, quantitative policy analysis, and legislative advocacy.  She began her career in Minneapolis, Minnesota at the Institute for Agriculture & Trade Policy working on behalf of small-scale sustainable agriculture producers and went on to build direct markets for Pennsylvania farmers in the Philadelphia marketplace. Renske subsequently directed Advocacy and Research for the San Francisco Food Bank working primarily on cross-sector partnerships to improve the federal food stamp and school lunch programs. She holds a BA degree from Boston University in Political Science and Psychology and a Masters in Public Policy from UC Berkeley’s Goldman School of Public Policy.

Renske is a Co-Founder and Managing Director of Food System 6, a non-profit, impact-focused accelerator based in the Bay Area that supports mission-driven entrepreneurs who are transforming how we grow, produce and distribute food. FS6 runs a 4-month cohort program that is designed to meet the individual needs of each of the accepted portfolio companies accepted and currently has an active portfolio of 23 companies working all throughout the value chain from on-farm innovations to consumer products.

FS6 collaborates with a wide range of partners and supporters across philanthropy, the investment sector, and with companies such as Annie’s and Google. FS6 is working to elevate the concept of blended capital to scale impact in the food system and to develop innovative financing approaches for its entrepreneurs.

Renske is also an active impact investor and philanthropist in the food system, and a member of Toniic, an impact investing group.

The post Food System 6 on Scaling Food System Innovation appeared first on Food+Tech Connect.

From January 7-31, Food+Tech Connect and The Future Market are hosting Biodiversity: The Intersection of Taste & Sustainability, an editorial series featuring interviews with over 45 leading food industry CEOs, executives, farmers, investors and researchers on the role of biodiversity in the food industry. See the full list of participants and read about why biodiversity in food is important here.

Below, we speak with Douglas Gayeton, director of The Lexicon of Sustainability, about how the organization’s Rediscovered Food Initiative is promoting use of 25 neglected and underutilized foods from across the globe through a multi-platform content series. The goal of the initiative is to shift consumers’ diets away from ultra-processed foods, while also helping farmers grow locally produced crops that provide greater biodiversity and resilience, are adapted to climate change, help conserve resources and contribute to regionally-based economic models that promote food sovereignty. The initiative includes a long roster of partners, including Google, The Culinary Institute of America, Slow Food and more.

Gayeton also talks about the need for economic drivers to create a more biodiverse food system, especially when it comes to our seed research, farmer adoption of diverse cropping systems and distribution systems.

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Danielle H. Gould: What is The Lexicon of Sustainability Doing to promote biodiversity?

Douglas Gayeton: Our work with the Rediscovered Food Initiative, which is aligned with SDG 2.5, focuses on shifting global agricultural systems, which primarily focus of the production of four commodity crops, toward a return to bioregionally adapted and native crops that offer greater plant diversity, better nutritional outcomes, and enhanced food security.

DHG: How does Lexicon of Sustainability define and think about biodiversity?

DG: One way natural systems achieve a point of equilibrium, or balance, is through biodiversity. From a purely economic standpoint, this expressed through risk diversification. In the face of certain stressors– environment, predator, resource competition, etc.–biodiversity offers a tool of resilience. This will become increasingly valuable given our uncertain future in a time of climate change.

DHG: What does an ideal biodiverse food system look like? How do you measure biodiversity, and when will we know when we’ve arrived at a “good” level of biodiversity?

DG: To achieve a more biodiverse food system, a number of mechanisms need to fundamentally change, and this will only happen if each of these shifts are driven by real economic returns.

1. To start, we need greater availability of open source seeds, more research by plant breeders and geneticists on a wider array of crops and a more robust system for sharing knowledge and expertise in the preservation and distribution of gene plasm.

2. Second, we need economic models that encourage farmers to adapt more diverse cropping systems. This could be as simple as introducing cover crops or crop rotations that include a wider range of crops (introducing millet and cover crops into a soy bean/corn rotation in the US, for example). It could expand in the Global South to embrace growing less commodity crops for export and more indigenous or traditional crops to feed local markets. In both cases, if farmers don’t see improved economic returns, biodiversity at scale won’t happen. Farmers are risk adverse and larger driven to make decisions based on what their neighbors are doing. It’s said that in farming regions, change is slow. It happens one death at a time.

3. Finally, we need distribution channels and consumer demand for a more diverse diet.

DHG: What’s at stake for society if biodiversity is reduced? Are there examples where a lack of biodiversity has caused problems within an ecosystem or community?

DG: Biodiverse agricultural systems have the potential to be regenerative, to build soil organic matter. This reduces a farmer’s reliance on chemical inputs.

The corn/soy production cycle we see in the American Midwest has created a number of problems. For example, it depends on chemical fertilizer inputs which invariably runoff into local water systems. In the Midwest, this nutrient loading of phosphorus and nitrate into waterways feeds into the Mississippi River, where it dumps into the Gulf of Mexico creating dead zones the size of New Jersey each year.

More diverse systems can enhance soil health, retain more water, reduce insect predation (and the pesticides used to combat them), reduce weed pressure (and the herbicides used on them) and provide a natural form of crop insurance in a time of greater weather uncertainty.

DHG: What is the scientific and/or business case for a biodiverse food system?

DG: Risk diversification. Crop insurance. Better health outcomes. Built soil organic matter. Strengthen ecosystem services.

DHG: What investments need to be made to create a more biodiverse food system?

DG: Education. The support of new markets, technologies, products and services provided by crops that aren’t soy, wheat, corn or rice. Case in point: pea protein isolate.

DHG: What are some of the most important things food manufacturers, chefs, retailers, farmers, and other key parts of the supply chain can do to support biodiversity?

DG: Become educated. Make purchasing and product decisions based on the support of regenerative farming practices and the consideration of a wider range of source ingredients.

DHG: Where can eaters and food industry professionals go to learn more about biodiversity issues and what they can do to help?

DG: The Rediscovered Food Initiative is producing books, television shows, traveling exhibits, school curriculum and websites that will share what success looks like in agricultural systems that become more diverse.

DHG: Are there certifications or other signals that can help the average consumer determine what kinds of foods are helping promote biodiversity?

DG: Not really. The certified organic label represents an agricultural model that uses both cover crops and crop rotations, but most consumers will not really grasp this distinction.

DHG: What are some examples of food products that promote biodiversity?

DG: Most of what we eat is the result of some sort of monoculture. When we eat a tomato, for example, or a walnut or a banana, it’s nearly always the case that this food came to use from a large scale producer who essentially focused on one crop. Since we buy our food based on price and not quality, producers must specialize to keep costs down; even if we strive to have a diverse diet, that doesn’t necessarily mean that the individual foods we eat are the bi-product of a biodiverse agricultural system.

DHG: If we get to a perfectly biodiverse food system, how would that change the typical selection of products we see in a grocery store?

DG: It would mean more problems for grocers because a grocery store would have less shelf stable foods, more perishable fresh foods, more diversity within individual crops (five types of zucchini, for example). However, this assumes that consumers want a more diverse diet. Since we have slowly eliminated the number of foods we eat from our diet, and increased our reliance on processed foods, we have to essentially re-educate (and reintroduce) consumers to a food lifestyle that has largely been forgotten. Since this new food system would require also more time in the kitchen, the likelihood of a this behavior shift happening will present a number of challenges.

DHG: What, if any, exciting products, technologies or services are you seeing that support a more biodiverse food system?

We are currently tracking 25 crops that have the potential to be true disruptors in the global food space.

DHG: What is your vision for what a more biodiverse food system looks like in 10-15 years?

DG: Less agricultural production for export. A greater return to regionally-based agricultural systems that provide nutrient security.

Read all of the interviews here and learn more about Biodiversity at The Future Market.

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Douglas Gayeton, Director of The Lexicon of Sustainability

Douglas is a taxonomist, filmmaker, photographer and writer specializing in impact storytelling in food and water. He has written and directed film series for PBS and HBO and Conde Naste. His stories and iconic photography about agriculture and food systems have appeared in thousands of pop up art shows, a concept pioneered by the Lexicon. Douglas is the author of SLOW: Life in a Tuscan Town, and Local: The New Face of Food & Farming in America. His photographs are held museums and private collections around the world.

Douglas’ life with the creative arts is informed by his early life as a professional skateboarder. As a technical media pioneer, he has worked in Europe, China and the Middle East. As a taxonomist, his focus is the environment and he gleans inspiration from life on a farm as a husband, father and wrangler of goats.

The post Rediscovered Food Initiative on Promoting 25 Underutilized Foods appeared first on Food+Tech Connect.

Startups in the food industry, and the food tech sector in particular, have seen quite a bit of turmoil over the past year. Prominent, well-funded companies like Good Eggs, Kitchensurfing, Dinner Lab and most recently Farmigo have either shuttered altogether or significantly scaled back their operations. As a food tech entrepreneur and advisor to other growing food companies, I am often asked: Is the food sector unwinnable?

I don’t believe so. The food industry is an old school behemoth that desperately needs innovation to feed our exploding population in a world of dwindling resources, as well as to help people eat the real, nutritious meals they crave even when their busy schedules don’t allow it. Innovation is not easy, but it’s possible. Problems arise when startups view the food industry like any other industry ripe for disruption, without fully appreciating the unique challenges it poses, particularly around logistics and customer acquisition.

The Food Distribution Logistics Challenge

The biggest problem startups consistently face is logistics. Food is a physical and perishable product, and our current system is built to move large amounts of it across the globe. For startups working on a local or regional level, or that necessarily begin with small food volumes, distribution often requires more capital than anticipated. Even marketplaces fundamentally depend on a transaction that moves food from point A to point B; if this distribution system is not efficient and economical, they have a hard time scaling rapidly.

Logistics challenges are not insurmountable with honest self-reflection and the right strategy. Traditional food distribution companies have been warehousing and successfully moving perishable goods for decades. UPS and FedEx have mastered far-ranging and inexpensive distribution systems for all other products. The knowledge of logistics exists; the key for any food startup is to understand whether it is a logistics company at its core (hint: it probably is), and then to bring on partners and employees early who possess the necessary expertise to build a logistics company. Those experts can figure out ways to work within the system to get new innovations off the ground.

The Customer Acquisition Challenge

The other unique factor for food startups is how multifaceted our relationship is to the food we purchase and consume. On the one hand, food is deeply tied to our culture and traditions, identity and social interactions, and our comfort and enjoyment. Quality and stories matter. On the other hand, thanks to last century’s modernization of our food system, we are now accustomed to having food be fast, cheap and consistent, not to mention always available. Any company entering the food industry must perform a balancing act between these two extremes, which is a tough mandate. Further complicating things, food purchases are most often decisions made out of habit and within a consumer’s comfort zone, which why consumer adoption of new food technologies and products tends to be slow.

To combat this slow adoption, many food startups fall prey to the land grab mentality of enticing as many consumers as possible through heavy discounting. This leads to overly high customer acquisition costs and negative gross margins, which are impossible to sustain in the long run. It also creates a temptation for the consumer to jump from competitor to competitor without forming an emotional or habitual connection with any of them. Rather than focusing on amassing as many customers as possible in the shortest time frame, food startups, in particular, need to focus on turning their customers into repeat users. One way to do this might be to focus on a constrained region where the company can tap into a community’s particular traditions and connections. Growth may be slower, but it will be stickier and more profitable in the short run.

Changing The Food System Takes Time

Ultimately, everything boils down to speed: changing the food system is going to be a long, slow process. This reality tends to be at odds with the current funding atmosphere and venture capital in particular. The “move fast and break things” mantra doesn’t work in food. Achieving sky high returns within a fund’s typical horizon of 5 to 10 years is near impossible when you’re dealing with food.

To any entrepreneur considering a food startup, I would pose two questions. First, are you providing a product or service that answers a real need for consumers without fully upsetting their emotional relationship to food? Second, are you and your investors prepared for the long haul both mentally and financially? The startup that answers yes to both of those questions has a good shot at not only disrupting food, but sticking around to reap the rewards.

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Jennifer Goggin has been an entrepreneur and advisor in the food-tech space since 2011 when she co-founded FarmersWeb to help farms, food hubs and food artisans streamline wholesale orders, deliveries and payments online. Prior to FarmersWeb, Jennifer was Director of Operations at Basis Farm to Chef, a local food distributor in New York. She has been a featured panelist and moderator for conferences on entrepreneurship and the food technology industry, as well as a guest columnist for Food+Tech Connect and Huffington Post Food. Jennifer is a board member of Slow Food NYC where she works on its Snail of Approval committee to recognize restaurants, bars, and markets that contribute to the quality, authenticity and sustainability of the New York City food supply.

The post Is Food Unwinnable for Startups? appeared first on Food+Tech Connect.

Guest post Benzi Ronen, Founder of Farmigo. This post is part of our Internet of Food Series. The views expressed are are solely those of the author and do not reflect the views of Food+Tech Connect.

Food tech today is centered around convenience: door-to-door delivery of meal kits, take-out, and packaged foods. I believe we have the responsibility to go further and leverage technology to create a food experience that’s centered around quality, transparency, and the championing of diverse, independent local farmers and small businesses.

Food quality will become increasingly paramount

In the current supermarket distribution model, fresh food travels an average of 1,500 miles before getting to store shelves. Unsurprisingly, this has a serious impact on the quality of our food. Fruit and vegetables are typically harvested unripe, so that they don’t spoil by the time they get to supermarket aisles, which means they’re lacking in taste and nutrients. This model also creates a tremendous amount of waste: more than 1/3 of 400 million pounds of fresh food grown each year is thrown out.

As we think about rewiring the food system for the better, we should aspire to collapse the distribution chain instead of adding to it. The solution is to eliminate middlemen, not simply replace them — Community Supported Agriculture (CSAs) and tech companies like Farmigo are already applying just-in-time models to directly connect consumers to farm-fresh food, harvesting only what’s ordered to maximize freshness and reduce waste.

Transparency will become a requirement

Consumers are increasingly educated and empowered when it comes to their food choices. They demand to know where their food comes from, how it was produced — whether it’s Certified Organic, or from sustainable farms, or if it contains any GMOs. They’re advocating for greater transparency around what goes into their bodies and are holding the food industry accountable.

Category players who will succeed are those that stay ahead of this transparency curve and proactively look for producers with the same standards. At Farmigo, we help consumers understand where everything we sell comes from. The growing and harvesting practices of all items in our marketplace are detailed in our farmer and artisan biographies. It’s a way of reconnecting us with the origin of our food, so that as consumers, we fully understand what’s on our plate.

Companies that empower small local farmers and makers will have a tremendous advantage

Today, there are over 8,000 local farmer’s markets in the U.S., compared to about 5,000 in 2008. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, local food and beverage sales grew from $4.8 billion in 2007 to nearly $11 billion in 2015. The resurgence of demand for farmer’s markets and CSAs in the past few years have helped promote and foster more sustainable, smaller scale production that provides a viable alternative to the current industrial food system.

These small producers are making higher quality, more unique food than their behemoth counterparts, experimenting with heirloom species of produce, new cooking techniques, and sourcing local and seasonal ingredients in a way that can’t be replicated by slower-moving agribusiness giants. Yet they’re often the first to be squeezed out of the current food system by supermarkets exerting their buying power to drive prices down.

By bypassing the traditional distribution chain, Farmigo is able to provide far wider margins to farmers. Today, Farmigo gives its farmers and producers an average of 60 cents to the dollar, which is unheard of in an industry where 20 cents to the dollar is the standard.

This new economic model allows farmers to focus on quality and sustainability over pure cost cutting and yields extraordinary results in taste and nutrition — customers who experience this leap will have no interest in going back.

Companies that help small local farmers and makers reclaim their vital role in the food ecosystem will succeed in the “better food” revolution. Local food is poised to surpass both organic and natural as more and more consumers experience the benefits of supporting their local food system. It’s a responsible way to shop for better tasting food that lets customers minimize their carbon footprint and boost the local economy.

Providing greater access to a better food experience will win the ‘category war’

With demand for local food increasing rapidly, there is a true opportunity to offer better access to farmer’s market-quality food to more people. 53% of Americans live in the suburbs, and often don’t have the option to go to farmer’s market or buy food from local producers. While door-to-door grocery delivery companies are efficient for city dwellers (who are willing to pay a premium for convenience), most of the population doesn’t have access to or can’t afford these services.

We need more options like Farmigo, a business that’s optimized for accessing suburban neighborhoods to deliver the best possible food in a way that’s also convenient for families and sustainable for farmers. Our network of neighborhood pick-up sites, built on existing communities, enables us to provide farm-fresh food to people who might otherwise be in a local food desert.

We have to recreate the right food experience and re-introduce our lost food connections — bringing people closer to their food, their farmers, and each other. We need to build a better food system for everyone.

This is an extraordinary moment in the history of food in America. Today, technology has the ability to revolutionize the way we produce, distribute, and consume food. The companies that lead the path to a better food experience will not only prosper but also be the ones to redefine the category.

Internet of Food is an editorial series exploring how we might use technology, new business models and design to guarantee healthy, safe and sufficient food for everyone. Join the conversation between March 23 and April 29. Share your ideas in the comments, on Twitter using #internetoffood, Facebook, Instagram or LinkedIn, and follow the conversation by subscribing to our newsletter.

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Benzi Ronen is building a better, more sustainable food system.

Having worked in the technology industry for more than a decade, Benzi felt it was time for a change. He noticed a disconnect between where technology was taking us and where it could take us. In today’s food industry, advances are focused largely on minimizing the human element rather than supporting it. Reflecting on the tremendous potential power of technology to bring eaters and farmers together, he decided to focus his newest venture on transforming the suburban and urban food landscape, which tends to be ruthlessly efficient at the cost of both quality and sustainability. Farmigo is a company dedicated to building a better food system from the ground up, one that benefits both farmers and eaters.

Benzi earned his BA from Tel-Aviv University and MBA from the University of Michigan. After graduating, he spent a decade working with giants in the technology world – Microsoft, Netscape, SAP – and launched a successful entrepreneurial endeavor, Octago, a piece of software that optimized user experience.  He lives in Brooklyn with his wife and their two children.

The post Localizing Distribution to Make Better Food Accessible to All appeared first on Food+Tech Connect.

Guest post by Humaira Faiz, associate director of impact investing at Arabella Advisors, and Eric Kessler, founder and managing director at Arabella Advisors. The views expressed are are solely those of the authors and do not reflect the views of Food+Tech Connect.

As Americans’ desire for healthier, more sustainable food options increases, the good food marketplace is rapidly maturing, creating opportunities for interested investors to drive social, environmental, and financial returns by helping to build a stronger good food supply chain.

At Arabella, we believe the recipe for a good food system has three essential ingredients:

1. A culture that demands good food
2. An infrastructure that supplies good food to meet that demand
3. A policy environment that enables a good food system to take root

Opportunities For Investing in Good Food

Developing the infrastructure to supply good food will require more than what philanthropy alone can deliver. Most of the solutions we need must come from private-sector commitments—specifically, from investments in companies across the food supply chain that can bring more sustainable, healthy, and affordable food to market.

Already, entrepreneurs and innovators are hard at work developing solutions designed to meet the good food market demands of the future. Below, we identify current opportunities across five areas of the good food supply chain—places where we believe capital investments can yield both compelling investment returns and meaningful impact in expanding the supply of good food.

Arabella’s commitment to building a better food system—and our ongoing work with policymakers, entrepreneurs, investors, and philanthropists—has afforded us insight into the rapidly developing good food supply chain. As we continue to monitor the investment landscape, we are very excited by the volume and diversity of direct investment deals that are emerging, and the potential for both social and financial returns. We look forward to hearing from and speaking with our clients and other partners about these opportunities for impact.

Please email us at goodfood [at] arabellaadvisors [dot] com to learn more about specific investment opportunities that work to build a good food system that provides access to healthy, sustainable, and affordable food for all.

Internet of Food is an editorial series exploring how we might use technology, new business models and design to guarantee healthy, safe and sufficient food for everyone. Join the conversation between March 23 and April 29. Share your ideas in the comments, on Twitter using #internetoffood, Facebook, Instagram or LinkedIn, and follow the conversation by subscribing to our newsletter.

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Humaira Faiz works with foundations and individuals to help them understand the field of impact investing, develop strategies, and create investment structures that achieve their social and environmental goals. Humaira has several years of investing experience, including with Bank of America Merrill Lynch, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Overseas Private Investment Corporation. Humaira holds an MBA from New York University, and a BS in finance and a BA with honors in English from Rutgers University.
As founder and senior managing director of Arabella Advisors, Eric Kessler has helped build a social venture firm dedicated to making philanthropy more effective. Now, Eric is leading Arabella’s Good Food practice, which supports philanthropists and impact investors who are pursuing solutions to one of the great challenges of our time: transforming our food system to make delicious, nutritious, sustainably produced food accessible for all. Eric also serves on the Executive Committee of the James Beard Foundation, founded the Chef Action Network, and helped judge the 2016 Good Food Awards.

The post The Case For Investing In The Good Food Supply Chain appeared first on Food+Tech Connect.

Guest post by Dr. Robyn Metcalfe, Director of Food+City. The views expressed are are solely those of the author and do not reflect the views of Food+Tech Connect. 

At a time when Britain was eyeing Germany and Bismarck as potential threats to the balance of power in Europe,  a British writer known for books about fly fishing wrote in 1897, “War, Famine, and our Food Supply,” fraught with concern about England’s ability to feed itself. The author, Robert Bright Marston, was beside himself, calling attention to England’s reliance on Russia and America for wheat and corn. Noting how Napoleon’s army starved on the steppes of Leningrad, Marston wanted another flavor of protectionism — the construction of grain storage buildings that would enable England to live for three months if a war cut the country off from its main source of food supplies in Russia and the U.S. He wanted to buy time for British farmers to build local capacity to fill the missing imports from Russia and America. Marston knew food was critical to the health of their nations, both for social stability and to enable economic progress for all its citizens.

Anxiety and concern about the impact that wars have on cities’ food supplies continues today. New Orleans and New York City are keenly aware that disruptions — whether war, hurricanes or other breakdowns of the food supply chain — have received only improvised protections. Cities routinely talk about their three- to five-day food supply, not the luxurious three-month supply Marston was angling for. But whether or not a city needs enough food for three days, three months or three years —  is a question that deserves more attention by urban planners and food systems experts..

Syrians are happy to have three minutes to consume a hastily provided meal from the World Food Program. After five years of conflict in Syria, the UN and the World Food Program were finally able to restore full rations to Syrians after a lack of funding in December 2014 stopped the delivery of food to refugees in Syria. While the media talks about casualties caused by weapons, little is said about deaths caused by famine and poison through the food systems in countries now at war. Few are aware of the destruction of livestock and cropland, or the contamination of soil and water, over the long duration of some modern conflicts.

The ripple effect of the disruptions caused by wars is difficult to imagine. The most obvious is the breakdown of the infrastructure, especially in the transportation of food. In Syria, even the perception of a disruption in the delivery of food causes an increase in black market activity, rising food prices and higher incidences of hoarding. Pita bread, animal fat and potatoes quickly disappear into personal storerooms, and Syrians freeze and dry food for longer-term storage. As it becomes more and more difficult to transport food to Syria, Syrians are looking for more localized food sources. As commodities like fuel and flour diminish, people worry about being able to produce flatbread, a simple yet essential element of their diet. With the potential breakdown of Syria’s government comes the loss of state control of bread prices and ingredient supplies.

While not as long term and uncertain as the Syrian crisis, natural disasters like Hurricane Sandy bring home how food supply disruptions can upset the stomach of an entire region. In the aftermath of the hurricane in 2012, gasoline was scarce, transportation broke down and food logistics professionals trucking in food from around the world struggled to keep New Yorkers supplied with pizza and bagels. New York wants more than three days of food to keep it afloat in the future — twelve months would be nice. But who decides, and how do we ensure at least enough food for a country to adapt and find new sources of sustenance, as Marston argued for?

We need food to enter the conversations of urban designers, especially those engaged in creating smart cities. After all, it was the journalist Alfred Henry Lewis, who said in 1906 that “the only barrier between us and anarchy is the last nine meals we’ve had.” Join the conversation about how we can create smarter cities here.

Internet of Food is an editorial series exploring how we might use technology, new business models and design to guarantee healthy, safe and sufficient food for everyone. Join the conversation between March 23 and April 29. Share your ideas in the comments, on Twitter using #internetoffood, Facebook, Instagram or LinkedIn, and follow the conversation by subscribing to our newsletter.

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Dr. Robyn Metcalfe is a food historian and lecturer at The University of Texas at Austin, Research Fellow at the School of Architecture, and Director of Food+City. Food+City is a bold exploration into the food supply chain to improve how we feed cities. Past careers include: heritage pig farmer, writer and production manager for Sunset Magazine, strategic planner for Arthur D. Little, Inc., and published author on a wide range of topics from food history to the theft of high technology. She also founded Kelmscott Rare Breeds Farm and Foundation in Lincolnville, Maine where she actively conserved endangered breeds of livestock for ten years.

The post Smart Cities Need To Get Smart About Local Food appeared first on Food+Tech Connect.

By Love Food Hate Waste NZ

Guest post by Joanne Wilson, angel investor at Gotham Gal Ventures. The views expressed here are solely those of the author and do not reflect the views of Food+Tech Connect.

Unless you are a farmer or a passionate gardener, the food you are eat passes through many hands before it gets to you. Sure there are laws around how food should be handled, but we have all read one too many times about someone getting sick from something they ate.

Technology has made it possible for us to track almost everything. Fast casual restaurants and grocery stores, for example, source products from multiple suppliers. In today’s age, the supply chain should be digitized; nothing should be done on paper anymore. Every grocery store and restaurant should make a pledge to exclusively accept supplies that have been tracked from their source to them. A commitment to using this kind of in-depth platform would make it much easier to track down bad food and in turn bad behavior across the supply chain. This information should be built on an open source platform or be made publicly available, so consumers can see where their food is coming from at, let’s say, Whole Food or Chipotle.

Overconsumption and waste are also big issues. Americans consume nearly one ton of food a year. What is more amazing is that about 40 percent of all food goes to waste. In addition to the health implications of eating one ton of food annually, this amount of food consumption also means more food is wasted at each stage of the supply chain. These stats underscore the need and opportunity for change.

There is a lot of waste across the supply chain, and we have to figure out how to use technology to become more efficient. But a lot of waste comes from consumer behavior. In Europe, for example, the portions are half the size of what they are in the U.S. But over the past 30 years, fast food portions have grown substantially, as have the prevalence of diet related disease. When I grew up diabetes was not rampant and neither was obesity. This is a consumer behavior issue. Using technology to educate consumers and to give them more information about the food they eat, the calories they consume and the supply chain their food comes from has the potential to shift both our insane amount of waste and the health of our nation.

With all of the technology that is available today, there is no reason that we can not guarantee healthy, safe and sufficient food for everyone.

Internet of Food is an editorial series exploring how we might use technology, new business models and design to guarantee healthy, safe and sufficient food for everyone. Join the conversation between March 23 and April 29. Share your ideas in the comments, on Twitter using #internetoffood, Facebook, Instagram or LinkedIn, and follow the conversation by subscribing to our newsletter.

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Joanne Wilson has had many careers. She started out in retail, eventually moving to the wholesale arena. She then transitioned to the media side of the technology world, before once again reinventing herself as an investor. She is currently an active angel investor with a portfolio of over 90 companies such as Food52, Catchafire, Vengo, Nestio, Captureproof, Makers Row, LeTote, and Union Station. She has been involved in numerous realestate transactions from beginning to end and continues to make investments in that world. She is also an investor in a few restaurants in the New York area. In addition to these endeavors, Joanne has been involved in various education projects and served as chairperson at Hot Bread Kitchen, a non-profit committed to increasing access to the culinary industry for woman and minority entrepreneurs. She also sits on the board of The Highline.

Joanne has maintained her very popular blog, www.gothamgal.com for over 11 years. She loves to bake, cook, throw a good party, travel, read, collect art, do the crossword and stay on top of what’s happening around the globe and in NYC. Her most successful venture is being married to her best friend, Fred and raising their three kids- Jessica, Emily and Josh.

The post Joanne Wilson On Digitizing The Food Supply Chain appeared first on Food+Tech Connect.

Secret Sauce: 10 Tips for Getting Your Product into Whole Foods is a guest series by the founders of Bandar Foods. Follow along as Dan and Lalit share their tips and tricks for starting and growing a specialty food company. 

Congratulations! You’ve made it this far. Let’s just start finally selling, shall we?! Put on Ricky Rozay and go hustle.

By this point you should have a list of first stores where you plan to first sell Grandma’s Sauce (Chapter Four). The easiest targets will be the independently owned small specialty shops in your neighborhood. Go now and try. Ask to speak to the manager and show off your goods. Get her to taste the sauce and explain why they should bring in your product. This will be good practice for when you try for larger chains and need to put together a more formal pitch/presentation.

What Makes a Good Sales Pitch?

At minimum, you should bring:

1. samples for a buyer to try;
2. a list of your products and specs including SKU numbers, barcodes, ingredients, etc. (also known as a “sell sheet”), and;
3. pricing and distribution options. Some retailers appreciate more information, others just want to try the samples.

Every buyer is different, so be the best salesperson you can be and read the various personalities and tailor your pitches accordingly.

At the end of the day, retailers simply care about making money – which means inventory turning over as quickly as possible. Since markets have limited shelf space, managers constantly optimize their grocery sets so every inch generates maximum revenue. Assume that every new product displaces another. Your challenge is convincing the retailer they will earn more money with your product than what they are currently generating. Some strategies:

• A Better Replacement: Since the arrival of your product likely means the departure of another, think through what makes yours a superior option and build that into the pitch. Think of objective attributes or certifications, and not subjective opinions. For example, Grandma’s Sauce is the only certified organic pasta sauce available under $5 is a better pitch than Grandma’s Sauce is the best tasting (even if it’s true, it’s harder to prove).
• On Trend: Assume that any grocery buyer is well aware of larger food trends (better-for-you, gluten free, etc.) and knows which of these trends their customer base is seeking. Use your pitch to explain why your product is on trend, rather than trying to teach a buyer about the larger trends. For example, mention that Grandma’s Sauce is gluten free; no need to bring up the stats about gluten allergies across the US.
• Local Customer Base: Mention all the local press you’ve received, or the number of social media followers, or the types of marketing events you put on in locally. Convince the buyer there is a willing audience already excited to start buying your product.
• Promotions and Sales: What will you do to help your product sell quickly? What types of discounts will you offer? Are you willing to sample the product in-store or participate in retailer marketing events? We’ll go through this next week.
• Data in Other Stores: Once you’re in a few stores, you will do everything you can to ensure your product sells well (we’ll discuss next week). This strong past performance in other stores will be the most valuable asset in your new sales pitches moving forward. If a retailer sees you kicking butt elsewhere, they will be more likely to take you on than without any indication of your success.

What About Whole Foods?

So this series is about getting into Whole Foods, right? Here is info specifically for ***Whole Foods***:

The most standard way to introduce your product is to submit to any or all of their eleven regions during the annual review cycle for your product category (i.e. pasta sauces). First, check the information onthis link>they made for potential suppliers. From there, you should reach out to the individual regions and introduce yourself. Ask for their category review schedule (so you should know when you should submit) as well as their new item forms and presentation templates. Please note that Whole Foods receives a LOT of new product submissions, so it’s probably best to follow their forms and templates to make review easier.

Another option includes trying to find a Whole Foods Regional Forager for your local region. This is an employee of Whole Foods who seeks out local companies that their customers might enjoy. Not all regions have a Forager, but we’ve been told that they can sometimes shepherd smaller companies through the submission process.

Another option is to find a broker (as discussed in Chapter 5) with deep ties to Whole Foods who can help with the process and potentially give you a better chance to get noticed during review periods.

Another option is to simply take your products to your local Whole Foods store and ask to show the store manager. We cannot say if the manager would be willing to try the products in her single store, but she could potentially help advocate for your products in a regional review if she likes them enough.

***The clear caveat is that we do not work for, nor speak on behalf of Whole Foods Market. We do not have any access to the internal workings of the retailer. The advice provided here is solely based upon our experience with getting our products into Whole Foods, as well as speaking to other entrepreneurs about their experiences. As they say in the infomercials, results may vary.***

Still two more chapters to go. Getting in is the easy part…Staying on shelf and building a brand is the real challenge.

Don’t miss the earlier posts in our Secret Sauce series!

• Secret Sauce: 10 Steps to Getting Your Product into Whole Foods (Intro)
• 10 Steps to Getting into Whole Foods: #1 Ensuring Your Product Is Sellable
• 10 Steps to Getting into Whole Foods: #2 Can Your Recipe Scale?
• 10 Steps to Getting into Whole Foods: #3 Develop a Standout Brand
• 10 Steps to Getting into Whole Foods: #4 Finding Product-Market Fit
• 10 Steps To Getting Into Whole Foods: #5 Understanding The Players
• 10 Steps To Getting Into Whole Foods: #6 Setting Up Admin
• 10 Steps to Getting Into Whole Foods: #7 Crunching Numbers

The post 10 Steps to Getting Into Whole Foods: #8 Start Selling! appeared first on Food+Tech Connect.

Image via Business Finance News

As I mentioned in my prior article on the Sysco/US Foods Merger, every food entrepreneur has to come up with a food distribution strategy, whether you sell wholesale or retail. Earlier this week, the US District Court in D.C. approved the Federal Trade Commission’s injunction against the merger, agreeing with the FTC’s view that the merger would lead to higher prices and diminished service for restaurants, hotels, schools, etc. The court’s decision caused Sysco to drop its $8.2 billion takeover, earlier this week.

Foodservice distribution has always been a challenging, capital and labor intensive business, but this new development should make it easier for innovative regional distributors and even new entrants to compete. And the changing taste of consumers is opening the door for disruptive new business models to compete against the two distribution giants.

Cities across America have taken up this charge in a variety of ways. Regional food hubs have popped up across the nation, bringing small farmers together to feed major metropolitan areas. Regional enterprises, both for-profit and non-profit alike, pull together resources and allow wholesale buyers to purchase produce from a variety of farmers, through a single distribution point. Companies such as TerreLocal in San Francisco, which connects consumers to a variety of purchasing options through an easy-to-use mobile app, the Seattle Tilth Food Hub in the Pacific Northwest and Red Tomato in Massachusetts work to bring farmers and consumers together in new ways. They are expanding the Farmer’s Market and CSA models onto a larger, more accessible scale, joining others such as Improvonia, Sourcery and FarmersWeb.

And with the number of regional food hubs doubling in the past six years, this is becoming an increasingly viable alternative in the food distribution scene. For a full list of registered food hubs around the nation, or to register a local food hub, visit the National Good Food Network.

Last week was certainly an interesting one for court decisions. And it would appear to be yet another reason to be optimistic about the future.

The post Breaking the Distribution Juggernaut: Courts Block Sysco/US Foods Merger appeared first on Food+Tech Connect.

The article is designed to be informational, not editorial. The views expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Food+Tech Connect.

It is probably worthwhile to pay attention to anyone who stands between you and your customers. This is the reason that Internet companies such as Google and Facebook are so concerned with “net-neutrality” and the broadband providers such as Comcast, Verizon and AT&T. If you are in the business of selling food, the equivalent is probably food distributors such as Sysco and US Foods.

This week, hearings begin as the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) tries to block the merger of the nation’s two largest foodservice distributors—Sysco and US Foods. These companies play a crucial role in getting food from manufacturers to consumers, distributing food and related products to restaurants, healthcare and educational facilities, lodging establishments and other foodservice customers. Sysco alone has over 400,000 business and institution customers across the US, with sales in excess of $46 billion a year, and US Foods is about half as large.

Distribution has long been the juggernaut of the food industry. When people used to grow much of their own food and/or purchase from their local farmers, distribution was relatively simple. But in today’s complex global, industrialized marketplace, distribution is often the “Alpha and the Omega,” and one the biggest barriers to new entrants entering the market and competing effectively.

Under federal law, a merger or acquisition of this magnitude must undergo review to ensure that the resulting entity will not be in a position to restrict trade or unfairly leverage their power. In the case of the recently attempted acquisition of Time Warner Cable by the largest cable provider Comcast, this review was done by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). For Sysco-US Foods, it is the FTC.

Earlier this year, the FTC decided to challenge the merger of “the only two single-firm broadline distributors with national geographic reach.” The FTC’s justification for blocking the transaction is that the combined entity would “create a national broadline foodservice distributor with 75% market share,” leading to “supracompetitive [higher] prices, reduced product offerings, and diminished product quality and service for customers.”

A central aspect of any antitrust review is defining the relevant market. In the case of Sysco-US Foods, the FTC determined it to be “broadline”—as opposed to specialty or local—distribution. Broadliners, also known as “soup to soap”, provides (as their nickname implies) access to more than just food. These companies purchase everything from fresh produce to meat to dry goods and paper products at bulk, wholesale prices, and then portion them out to sell them to restaurants and foodservice providers, with a markup ranging from 10 to 50 percent.

The markup percentage range is quite large and the range can have an enormous impact, especially on new entrants. As the chart to the right shows, small manufacturers and small operators are the most vulnerable to the influence of large distributors. Further complicating the situation, big distributors often utilize “year-end rebates,” which are not typically passed along to consumers.

“There was definite panic in the restaurant industry among small businesses when the merger was announced. They know they’re going to get squeezed,”restaurant owner Suzanne Aquila tells the Wall Street Journal. According to Danny Christofano, who worked at Sysco for 18 years and now is a consultant to local distributors, the merger would give Sysco more leverage. “They will have more buying power and more pricing power.”

While certainly not dispositive, it is worth noting that Sysco and US Foods do have a long legal history of alleged wrongdoing. In addition to numerous lawsuits and settlements for over-charging customers, Sysco last year agreed to pay $19.4 million in penalties and restitution after an investigation exposed the company’s longstanding practice of storing meat, produce, dairy, and other fresh food in dirty, unrefrigerated, outdoor storage units.

Large mergers and acquisitions in the U.S. market have become quite common, and it’s quite rare for the government to publicly challenge them. In the case of recently proposed Comcast/Time Warner merger, the DOJ expressed concerns about a post-merger Comcast controlling over half of the broadband market and possibly being able to impose anticompetitive behavior on video-streaming services. In a competitive market, these businesses would have a viable alternative. But the government is loathe to permit what is perceived to be a “merger to monopoly,” especially in a distribution business that requires massive infrastructure for any new competitor to replicate.

It is difficult to predict how the FTC’s challenge of the Sysco-US Foods merger will ultimately turn out, but based on the public posturing to date, it should be interesting to watch. Unlike Comcast, which called off its merger at the first sign of government opposition, Sysco remains confident despite the vehement resistance of the FTC and twelve states. As they like to say in Sysco’s home state of Houston, “Don’t Mess with Texas.”

Check out Lawrence’s other pieces:

• Making Healthful, Sustainable Food the 21st Century Value Meal
• Arming Consumers with the Tools to Demand Real Food
• Why the Foodservice Industry Is Ripe for Disruption
• Creating a Path of Least Resistance to Real Food

The post Why Food Startups Should Care About the Sysco-US Foods Merger appeared first on Food+Tech Connect.

For the past 2 months, we’ve hosted the Internet of Food Series with Seeds&Chips to explore the question: “How might we use technology, new business models and design to guarantee healthy, safe and sufficient food for everyone?”. We’ve had 21 submissions from food tech innovators.

Today, we are thrilled to close the series with an interview with Josh Tetrick, CEO of Hampton Creek, a food startup that’s on a mission to make affordable, sustainable and delicious food available to the masses. The maker of plant-based products has seen unprecedented growth and made a ton of noise over the past year and a half. In less than one year, the startup’s Just Mayo product was being sold in 20k stores. Food giant Unilever brought a lawsuit against Hampton Creek, which was later dropped but reportedly tripled the food startup’s sales. Hampton Creek also raised a $90M Series C led by Khosla Ventures and Horizons Ventures and announced a partnership with Compass Group, the largest foodservice provider in the world.

Check out our interview below to hear more about how technology enables Hampton Creek to create better, more affordable products, the impact its Compass Group partnership hopes to have and why an IPO may be in its future.

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The post How Hampton Creek Aims to Guarantee Healthy, Safe & Sufficient Food For All appeared first on Food+Tech Connect.

Guest post by Peretz Partensky, co-founder of Sourcery. The views expressed here are solely those of the author and do not reflect the views of Food+Tech Connect.

Food cultures and technology have always been intimately linked. We used technology to grow tomatoes in winter and peas in the fall. We used technology to develop our current food system, which maximizes for calories and efficiency through centralization. Centralization has benefits, but it also means we can’t have a say in what we eat or where it comes from.

Today’s technologies can finally tackle the least transparent part of our food system: the supply chain.

The locavore and organic movements are often seen as elitist and expensive, but in the distant past, everything was local. It was only with the advent of modern technologies – transportation, refrigeration, and new crops – that we gained access to a variety of food in all seasons and climates. Centralized distribution systems made it possible for producers to specialize in one product, which they could then raise with maximum efficiency. This lowered prices for the consumer, but it came with a hidden cost.

Our current, centralized system is efficient and inexpensive. It is also opaque. How and where your produce is grown is extremely difficult to track. The system developed to move large orders of homogenous products, not to maximize for the health of produce, consumers, farms or the environment.

Sourcing is especially hard for restaurants, which deal with multiple suppliers. According to the National Restaurant Association, Americans spend $709.2 billion dollars in restaurants every year or 47 percent of the food dollar. Helping restaurants control their sourcing is key to changing the way our supply chains works. Finding local, responsible producers who chefs trust may not add significantly to the cost of a single tomato order, but the overhead in terms of time at scale makes it extremely expensive.

A restaurant that accepts whatever produce is offered them, without asking questions, can meet almost all of their needs through three or four vendors.

In comparison, a restaurant in the farm-to-table model may have to pay 100 invoices a month from 15 different suppliers, each operating on different payment terms.

Foodservice businesses are incentivized to consolidate back of house operations. They cut back on ingredients and the number of suppliers they order from, even when local farms are available. A restaurant in Sacramento could end up buying produce from the farm next door without even knowing it, only to have it sent to a distributor in San Francisco and hauled all the way back. In the centralized model, the logistical cost at scale trumps all others.

A number of things are coming together to make tracking and selecting our food easier.

First, a growing desire for transparency is motivating more consumers to seek out the food they want. Consumers want information about where their food comes from and how it was produced, so they can make informed decisions. Transparency, quality, and value are important. Food producers and distributors are beginning to see that transparency is marketable.

At the same time, technology is making new, decentralized business models possible. Disruptive technology is reducing the cost of many loosely connected parts. Sourcery lowers the cost to restaurants of sourcing their food from a variety of producers. Sourcery connects restaurants with their local farms and handles the entire overhead – a kitchen can order from 100 suppliers, but they’ll only have to pay one invoice.

Our modern food system involves a complicated supply chain, but we have the technology to make sure the healthy choice is also the easy, affordable choice.

Internet of Food is editorial series exploring how we might use technology, new business models and design to guarantee healthy, safe and sufficient food for everyone. Join the conversation between February 17 and April 2. Share your ideas in the comments, on Twitter using#internetoffood, Facebook or LinkedIn. 

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Peretz is the Co-Founder of Sourcery. Sourcery’s mission is to create economically and environmentally sustainable food ecosystems by developing products and services that improve communications and commerce between buyers and suppliers.  Prior to founding Sourcery, Peretz coached a basketball team in Afghanistan, got a master’s degree in Literature from the University of Cambridge, and a PhD in Biophysics from the University of California, San Francisco.

The post Food Supply Chain Transparency Is Key to a Healthy Future appeared first on Food+Tech Connect.

Guest post by TJ Murphy, CEO of Baldor. The views expressed here are solely those of the author and do not reflect the views of Food+Tech Connect.

Let me preface this article by stating that we at Baldor do not believe that the entire food system is broken. In fact, as a major distributor, we often work within a system that has harnessed a historic level of efficiency to feed an unprecedented number of people. That system is Big Ag.

Does this mean that we are supporters of the status quo?  Of course not—it means that we believe in the power of infrastructure to drive the food system. Our goal is to deploy operational expertise and industry-tested best practices to bring new levels of efficiency to the sustainable food movement. In order to achieve this goal, we are developing a cutting edge new e-commerce website and rolling out new initiatives to galvanize our local program and minimize food waste.

With over two hundred trucks on the road and warehouses in New York, Washington D.C. and Boston, Baldor is uniquely positioned to connect regional food systems on the East Coast. Because our truck routes extend from Portland, ME all the way to Norfolk, VA, we are able to backhaul product from our delivery areas, increasing our ability to support local farms and minimizing our carbon footprint in the process.  As a result of our diverse customer base, we have also been able to create closed circuit systems between local farmers and the local manufacturers we serve.  These 360 degree partnerships help strengthen alternative economies and create healthier, more environmentally sound systems of food production.

We are enacting a number of initiatives that will help us offer healthier, safer food and minimize waste. For example, we are leveraging our food processing unit “Fresh Cuts” to create kitchen-ready ingredients from local farm produce.  These processed products will create opportunities for institutional buyers and major food service providers to significantly support our local farm program.

Fresh Cuts is also on the vanguard in our effort to minimize food waste. In late March, we collaborated with Dan Barber on his WastED dinner series by delivering by-product materials from our food processing facility.  His chefs then transformed these ingredients into a gourmet menu, creating a delicious argument against our tendency to dispose of usable food. We are currently in the process of implementing a disposal system that breaks down organic food waste into water.  We also donate over one million pounds of food per year to the Food Bank for New York City and City Harvest.

Much has been written on the ways in which commercial agriculture and corporate food processors have let America down. Far less has been said about the powerful systems of production and distribution that have allowed them to dominate the market. We believe that the only way for the sustainable food movement to migrate from the margins of the industry is to infiltrate the existing systems and use them for good.

Internet of Food is an editorial series exploring how we might use technology, new business models and design to guarantee healthy, safe and sufficient food for everyone. Join the conversation between February 17 and April 2. Share your ideas in the comments, on Twitter using#internetoffood, Facebook or LinkedIn. 

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The specialty food business is in TJ Murphy’s blood.  As the grandson of Nina and Andy Balducci, owners of the iconic Greenwich Village retail store Balducci’s, he was introduced to the culinary world at an early age. He began his career at Baldor during high school under his father, former CEO and founder Kevin Murphy.  Since then, he has worked his way through every department at the company beginning as a picker and receiver in the warehouse.

TJ was appointed CEO in 2013 after Kevin Murphy’s death.  In this role, he has led Baldor with both a reverence for the company’s past and a keen eye towards the future.  He shares his father’s passion for sourcing and maintains Baldor’s legacy for buying the best from the best. He is also a believer in the power of data and has implemented sophisticated analytics in order to guide the company.

In 2014, he spearheaded a revamp of the website that will put the company on the vanguard of technological advances in the industry. He is also committed to expanding regional sourcing efforts and leveraging Baldor’s logistical power to build a local program that is synonymous with the company’s reputation for service and quality. Under TJ’s direction, Baldor’s Boston location has expanded into a 13,000 square foot warehouse in order to accommodate growth in New England. Recently, he returned to his family’s roots by assuming management of the produce division at international retail chain Eataly. TJ lives with his wife Christine and daughter Nina Marie. They enjoy cooking together and keeping Balducci traditions alive through their culinary explorations.

The post Harnessing Existing Distribution Infrastructure to Make Sustainable Food Mainstream appeared first on Food+Tech Connect.

Image via Modern Farmer

Guest post by Rebecca Chesney, Communications and Research Manager at the Institute for the Future. The views expressed here are solely those of the author and do not reflect the views of Food+Tech Connect.

“The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper,” wrote poet W. B. Yeats.

Until now, we have been mostly blind to the systems and networks of systems that underpin our physicality. But over the next decade, a confluence of breakthroughs in physics, engineering, biology, computation and complexity science will give us new lenses to observe the wondrous interconnections surrounding us and within us. It is in those systems—from the microbial to the planetary—where the potential truly lies to improve our lives, restore our planet and understand our universe.

So begins Institute for the Future’s (IFTF) 2013 map, Age of Networked Matter, a journey through three time horizons to a future of immense possibility. Beyond the current flood of Abundant Data, and just past the promise of the Internet of Things, we find a world where everything is interconnected in entirely new ways. It is the Age of Networked Matter.

When thinking about the future of food in this world, we must think about how to develop and harness our technological capabilities for resiliency, equity and stability. The interactions of food with soil, shipping crates, packaging, processing and cooking and our bodies are inherently complex. An influx of data-driven food production, distribution, and 3D printing efforts create a window into these interactions at extraordinary resolution. The Internet of Food—emerging as fields of sensors, connected cups and handheld scanning devices—is beginning to add a virtual overlay to this reality, reshaping the ways in which we engage with this data in daily food experiences.

Imagine what will happen when the connections within the entire global food system are not only evident, but also programmed—when natural and artificial objects can communicate and work in concert with each other. To picture this world, I highlight one forecast at each scale in the Age of Network Matter map and its possible food system impacts:

Micro scale | adaptive atoms: toward programmable materials

Breakthroughs in nanoengineering, info-chemistry and materials science will deliver machines and materials that can adapt and self-organize in changing contexts, such as projects from MIT’s Self-Assembly Lab. This might manifest as seeds that are programmed to adapt to sudden shifts in weather conditions, or logistics systems that automatically reroute spoiled food to a compost facility.

People scale | organizations as algorithms: toward computable work

In traditional computing, the human provides the framework and algorithm, and computing power provides the answer. Emerging systems flip this relationship, designed to route problems to the right people at the right time, such as tools currently used for efficient warehouse operations. In the Age of Networked Matter, a single restaurant software program might place and track supply orders, coordinate staff schedules, manage finance and customer feedback, and even synthesize all this information to refine menus according to eater taste, ingredient availability, and food prices.

City scale | social robots: toward robot co-dependence

As robots become pervasive mobile nodes on the network, they will become socially engaged with each other. Like ant colonies, groups of robots will work together on a multitude of tasks, even to form a robot orchestra. Though already prevalent on farms, these more collaborative robots might become integral for food distribution in dense urban areas or essential for food security during natural disasters.

Planetary scale | interplanetary internet: toward a networked space age

As entrepreneurial ventures for medicine, manufacturing, and even tourism drive the space race, new technology will be deployed to network space vehicles, satellites, and eventually human habitats (and farms needed to feed them). These programs will likely accelerate new technologies on Earth, particularly as we are faced with growing food in rapidly changing climates.

This networked future might seem daunting, but it is one that we need to consider as we innovate today—especially with the long-term and far-reaching impacts of food system efforts. Abundant Data and the Internet of Food are the scaffold for this coming Age of Networked Matter. What are you building?

Internet of Food is editorial series exploring how we might use technology, new business models and design to guarantee healthy, safe and sufficient food for everyone. Join the conversation between February 17 and April 2. Share your ideas in the comments, on Twitter using#internetoffood, Facebook or LinkedIn. 

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Rebecca Chesney is a Research and Special Projects Manager with Institute for the Future’s Food Futures Lab. Her passion is to connect farmers, chefs, innovators, and eaters to collectively shape the future of food. Her research includes food security, open innovation, changing norms and values across the food system. In 2015, she is helping launch IFTF’s multi-year study of food innovation hubs around the world. Rebecca previously worked with the World Bank and wrote financial accounting policy for the United States. She holds degrees in accounting and finance from Texas A&M University and an MA in the anthropology of food from SOAS, University of London.

The post Programming the Global Food System, from Smart Seeds to Distribution Robots appeared first on Food+Tech Connect.

Guest post by Michael Lippold, founder of FreshRealm. The views expressed here are solely those of the author and do not reflect the views of Food+Tech Connect. 

It seems like we have been trying to reinvent the wheel in the food industry, but an improved model may be closer and easier than we think.

Some of the finest examples of innovation in the last years have come not from never-before-seen systems, but from reimagining existing systems to be faster, better, smarter.

Look at Uber, leveraging existing vehicles on the road for sleeker and more convenient transportation on demand. Look at Airbnb, leveraging extra bedrooms to provide travelers more personal hospitality experiences (not to mention new revenue for those who host).

Both Uber and Airbnb offer better economics, are more sound for the environment and provide a stronger connection between people – all by using current infrastructure.

The same is possible for our food distribution. All of the ingredients to provide healthy, safe and sufficient food to every American are already in place in our existing food ecosystem. We just haven’t been using them to their potential.

40% of all food in America is wasted. 70% of Americans’ calories come from processed food loaded with preservatives. Our food distribution system is starved for efficiency, traveling from farm to truck to packing center to distribution center to truck to another distribution center to stockroom to shelf to table. The average “fresh” cut fruits and vegetables or prepared salads and sandwiches on your grocer’s shelf are often up to 5-7 days old. There are still regional pockets of America where real, fresh food is out of reach, and certainly not sustainable.

We can do better for our industry, our planet and for each other.

Let’s start with one part of the industry that works very well. Food is safe. Despite the inefficiencies mentioned, our food safety standards are first-class and reliable.  We need to leave them uncompromised as our industry evolves. Our challenge then, is to design an institutional solution that dramatically reduces the amount of time it takes for fresh food to get from farm to table, without decreasing our current food safety standards.

Now, the core issue: we cannot distribute fast or efficiently enough to bring fresh, healthy food to everyone. As a result, many people instead rely on processed calories, and nearly half of our food goes to waste.

To offer fresh food everywhere, we need to get it there not just faster, but more directly. We can close the distribution gap through innovative technology, great design and human connection. We have been working on the forefront of this issue at FreshRealm.

Traditionally, food makers, packers and carriers have operated in silos, thinking and working independently from each other and the families they nourish. This system has standardized inefficiencies in delivery time, resulting in higher costs and food spoilage. But by applying a cloud-based portal that each party leverages together, we can seamlessly connect the people and operations that harvest, prepare, pack, deliver and eat the food – and eliminate virtually all food waste and the main need for processed food. This is what FreshRealm has started doing in California and is preparing to do throughout the country.

There have been a number of different grocery, cooking and meal delivery systems introduced to the market in the last few years. We see most of them falling into two categories: using the existing system of warehousing food between multiple distribution centers and adding a truck on the end of it, or trying to become food maker/packer/distributor by themselves.  Why recreate existing food infrastructure when it is already built for the masses? Why add more trucks to the road when companies like FedEx and UPS have already developed exquisite infrastructure to reach every American, efficiently?

Working with national delivery carriers then brings up another question: how do you ship perishable foods in non-refrigerated trucks? Not in a cardboard box. Not in a mini-fridge. You’d have to design something that works optimally for existing infrastructure and for safe temperature control. Our solution is the FreshRealm Vessel: a reusable box housing an insulated, modular shelving system for delivering a week’s worth of fresh food safely. It is a result of imagination and conscience, something in no short supply in 2015.

The decades-old system of farmers, packers, merchandisers and hungry Americans is simply reimagined. With the help of design, technology and a collaborative business model, we are building a platform that’s able to deliver real, fresh food to anywhere in the contiguous 48 states in just one day. This is not a rebuilding of the food industry — this is an evolution of the industry by connecting more efficiently.

Internet of Food is editorial series exploring how we might use technology, new business models and design to guarantee healthy, safe and sufficient food for everyone. Join the conversation between February 17 and April 2. Share your ideas in the comments, on Twitter using#internetoffood, Facebook or LinkedIn. 

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Michael R. Lippold is co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of FreshRealm, a fresh food delivery platform, connecting food makers, packers, carriers, merchants and shoppers through innovative cloud-based technology and the revolutionary Vessel.  Before founding FreshRealm, Michael spent over six years at Calavo Growers, Inc. as Director of Strategic Development where he led the acquisition of one of America’s premiere fresh food companies. Michael spent over ten years on Wall Street as a Portfolio Manager & Analyst for Telluride Asset Management, Craig-Hallum Capital Group, Prudential Financial, and Rocket Capital Management.  Michael earned his Bachelor of Arts in Financial Economics from Gustavus Adolphus College in Minnesota and holds his Chartered Financial Analyst designation.

The post Reimagining, Not Reinventing, Food Distribution appeared first on Food+Tech Connect.