How Do We Best Produce The Foods Of The Future?

The National Health & Medical Research Council (NHMRC) recently announced sustainability messaging will be included in the updated Australian Dietary Guidelines, and not included as a separate section within the appendices (as it currently is in the 2013 Australian Dietary Guidelines).

Knowing sustainability is shifting even further into centre stage in a key government document such as this, provides even greater incentive for innovation and marketing teams to reference and address sustainability both in the short and long term.

While the desire to produce food more sustainability, and to communicate this to consumers, is a movement that has been accelerating in the past 10 years, meaningful progress is yet to be made when it comes to measuring impact.

The announcement by the NHMRC will further drive initiatives already underway, some of which have been linked to the ideals and intentions of the UN Sustainable Development Goals - an umbrella under which food innovation aimed at transforming our food system toward a healthier and more sustainable future can sit.  Examples of these goals include moving toward more responsible production and consumption, climate action, good health and wellbeing and better use of land, water and energy.

While it’s easy to be inspired by the momentum that is building in this area, it’s sobering to consider how far behind we are in making an impact to both climate change and to the quality of people's diets.

Food production continues to contribute to a number of unsustainable environmental issues while food consumption habits are now resulting in a rising prevalence of malnutrition co-existing with overweight and obesity. 

With the ready availability of cheap, nutrient poor foods, it's not only becoming harder for people to manage their weight, its becoming harder to get the nutrients needed to live well in the short term and to maintain optimal health in the long term.

When we talk about food and sustainability, equal weighting therefore needs to be given to both environmental and nutritional impact.  Solving both of these issues is how food businesses can most effectively prepare for the future and be best positioned to obtain greater returns from investment in innovation. 

Getting 'more from less' means not only getting more food using fewer resources, it also means getting more nutrients from less food.

To do this, the following diagram provides a simple strategy for auditing where your products currently sit, and the key strategy to adopt to be future ready. The aim is to move up and to the right.  

The key questions are: where do my products currently sit and what can I do to move forward? 

If you’d like help to create this movement, please get in touch.