A Burger of Possibilities — The New Era of Food
I explore the links between food production and climate change in a food innovation industry predicted to be worth $700 billion by 2030….
By Kajal Sanghrajka, @kajalnyclon
For new readers, welcome to the 2019 Transatlantic Post a monthly editorial on innovation, startups and cities. With occasional British satire by Kajal
Global friends, welcome back to The Transatlantic Post, after a short but eventful summer hiatus. The UK now has a new prime minister and I’ll reserve political opinion for most of these editorials as I fear the language will evolve from playful satire to toxic parodies. So for this episode, we’re sticking to the glorious topic of food but first…
Playing back 2019 so far…
The Transatlantic Post covered Corporate Entrepreneurship in Sharks & Start-ups, the fast growing FemTech market in Aphrodite 2.0, the world of Cannabis in Is the Grass Greener on the other side?, Urban gentrification in The Price of a Bigger Apple and the acceleration of DeepTech in Deeptech, Luke Skywalker or Darth Vader?
The most read of the year to date was Aphrodite 2.0 on the FemTech market. Now turning our attention to the remainder of 2019..
New areas of focus for the Post and “The Why”..
This year, I’ve reported on various market segments featuring startups and innovators on both sides of the Atlantic but I’m much more interested in how innovation will solve major global challenges and how each of us will also play a part. In addition, from my observations and interviews across cities to date, I believe universities will play a greater role in incubating both the ideas and innovative companies addressing those challenges. For the remainder of editorials this year, we’ll aim to better understand:-
(1) How our major global challenges are being solved through innovation from start-ups and businesses across cities
(2) How university innovation and startups in particular are playing a greater role in addressing these challenges
You might be wondering what sort of global challenges I mean…
A new UN report released last week on climate change indicated the links between food production, land use and global warming. Scientists estimate that up to 14% of emissions from agriculture in 2050 could be avoided by managing food use and distribution better. One common recommendation is to reduce consumption of meat and dairy to help ease the burden on natural resources.
Several businesses are solving this by providing “lower carbon diet alternatives” i.e. vegetarian or vegan products as demonstrated by the oversubscribed Gregg’s vegan sausage roll in the UK (it actually tastes pretty good) and the rise of meat substitute products such as the “Impossible Burger” from Beyond Meat — a company which IPO’d at a staggering $1.46 billion. In fact, the plant based meat market is predicted to grow by 25% a year to $85 billion by 2030 according to UBS (in case you thought these businesses are small potatoes)
The BBC recently posted a climate change food calculator to assess your diet’s carbon footprint (see diagram below) sorry to be the bearer of bad news but real burgers and chocolate are amongst the worst offenders. I’m a vegetarian because I grew up Jain but I’ve struggled on the concept of veganism so far due to the existence of halloumi cheese.
The good news is that if like me you aren’t on a saintly diet of tofu, beans and nuts, you can reduce your carbon footprint by reducing food waste. In the UK, half the edible food thrown away each year comes from people’s homes. You can sign up to services like startup Olio in the UK or Partage in Switzerland which helps to reduce this waste through providing food to others who might need it. Here is also a list of other European food waste startups in the mix.
In the US, a recent report estimated 63 million tonnes of food is wasted annually. In response, a number of interesting B2B tech startups have begun to help tackle this:- Shelf Engine in Seattle uses machine learning to stop food waste from eating into store margins and Spoiler Alert, which helps food businesses better manage unsold food inventory. Food innovation is also being spurred along by the emergence of several food accelerators including the Chobani Incubator in New York to take on broken food systems.
Whether its alternatives to meat or reducing food waste — as a whole the food innovation opportunity represents a $700bn market by 2030, it includes other areas such as vertical farming and AI to usher in a new era of food production. The predicted size of this market also gives you a sense of the scale of the challenge upon us. More on this in our featured reports below.
A last note on topic of innovation to solve global challenges…
Several years after co-founding Columbia University’s first start-up incubator, I recently begun working with the London School of Economics Research and Innovation team. We’re working on a new accelerator and several entrepreneurial programmes at LSE Generate aimed at supporting LSE student and alumni businesses who will be tackling some of these challenges.
We’re half way through the pre-accelerator programme working with some incredibly dedicated entrepreneurs (more on that below in the community section) — do send me an email for more information and for collaboration and investment opportunities.
Don’t forget to read about all the great things you are all up you in the community section below. We’ll be back on a regular post Summer schedule from September in your inboxes
each month. Until next time, have a fabulous August and I’ll leave you with a quote from Sir David Attenborough.
“We have to recognise that every breath of air we take, every mouthful of food we take, comes from the natural world”
Sincerely yours,
Kajal
t: @kajalnyclon | w: transatlanticpost.com
NEWS FROM THE COMMUNITY
This month, we kicked off a pre-accelerator programme at the London School of Economics for several businesses including Money Manager which empowers millennials to save more, Project Happy Note which supports cancer patients and their friends and family with gift giving, EdenEra which has launched a soy powdered milk product to support a zero waste lifestyle, LanterneAI which is developing a product to help international organisations based in conflict zones to navigate safely, KayTea which is creating a teavolution and a gaming company which is teaching complex topics like economics to better inform citizens on related areas that impact their daily lives.
Congratulations to long time reader Vinay Trivedi on joining General Atlantic as an Investment Manager — you wrote to me once to tell me to keep going with the writing which was huge source of encouragement — wish you a great start at your new role.
Two new initiatives by dear friends and incredible women in their fields:-
Yota Trom a former technologist for Yahoo and Amazon is launched A Women in Tech Club featured by The Telegraph, keep an eye out for the next event.
Women Speakers in Healthcare, a social enterprise co-founded by Nada Al Hadithy, Katie Knight, Rose Penfold, Lucia Magee and Greta McLachlan. The organisation aims for balanced gender representation of at every healthcare event — contact them via the website if you’d like to be added to the database of speakers.
If you have noteworthy news you’d like to share please hit reply!
FOOD INNOVATION A $700BN MARKET BY 2030
An interesting analysis on the food market from UBS “The Future of Food and the Challenges we face”. Researchers expect rapid expansion in areas such as farming 4.0 and seed treatment and science, whilst for agriculture as a whole the technology segment could jump from $135bn today to $700bn by 2030, representing a 15% annual compound growth rate. While challenges on food production persist, researchers believe we are on the cusp of a new agricultural revolution. A fascinating read for those curious about the future of food.
PLANT-BASED DIET CAN FIGHT CLIMATE CHANGE
This week saw the release of a UN report on climate change and food security prepared by 107 scientists. This article describes how climate change and food are linked and how changing the way we use land and ultimately our diet could help to reduce greenhouse gases. There are of course many counter arguments on whether our diets really make a dent in climate change but most agree that reducing consumption of meat and dairy is a healthier choice. I shall let you be the judge after reading this take on the recent report.
FOOD WASTE INNOVATOR DATABASE
In the U.S, 63 million tons of food are wasted annually, at a cost of $218 billion. This wasted food consumes 20 percent of freshwater, fertiliser, cropland, and landfill space in America. This database tracks all commercial and non profit entities innovating to solve the food waste problem by reducing natural resource usage, alleviating food poverty and business models which pass on savings to consumers and businesses.
GET IN TOUCH!
- Click here to get the TP in your inbox every month.
- Follow me on twitter @Kajalnyclon.
- Learn more about my work, research and speaking topics at my website and LinkedIn
- Feedback? I’d love to hear from you, reply to this email
ABOUT THE TRANSATLANTIC POST A monthly editorial on innovation, startups and culture across cities. With occasional British satire. Written and edited by Kajal Sanghrajka, Churchill Fellow and Founder of Growth Hub Global. For previous editions see the archive.
We take your privacy seriously and your information is not used in any other way except to send this monthly email. If you prefer not to receive it, you can unsubscribe at any time.
