Sustainability of currently food systems is one of the concerns of Humanity. Food systems as we know them, start to face a situation of disruption and are a source of environmental, economic and social problems at a global level. Therefore, the scientific community is attentive to this problem, developing innovative projects as possible solutions to change the way current food systems have been managed.

Several inspiring projects were presented in Rotterdam at the International Conference on Sustainable Food Systems and Simbiose was there to meet them. Several topics were discussed, such as “clean labels", local consumption, valorisation of food waste, sustainability of current and future food systems, food waste, among others.

There were many projects that came up, but we selected only a few for this article, which we think may be more of general interest.

The Barilla Center for Food and Nutrition (BCFN), based in the city of Parma, Italy, aims to make human food more sustainable, using a tool called The Food Sustainability Index (The Food Sustainability Index) , acting at an economic, environmental and social level to guarantee health and quality of life for Humanity.

67 countries are counted as part of the Food Sustainability Index and, it is a quantitative and qualitative model, which measures the sustainability of food systems in three areas: nutritional challenges, agricultural sustainability and food waste. It also has three types of performance indicators: social, economic and environmental.

For more information, you can access http://foodsustainability.eiu.com/.

Professor William Chen Wei Ning, from Singapore’s Nanyang University of Technology, is involved in several innovative projects in order to reduce the impact of food waste and to take advantage of the resulting waste for new food options. At the same time, Professor Ning also develops projects in the areas of nutrition and food security and shelf consumption. Singapore imports 90% of the food it consumes, due to the effects of climate change in the country and an aging population. As there has been a decline in the agricultural area over the years, there is currently a greater need for the development of technologies to promote the primary sector.

An interesting idea from a nutritional point of view is the development of a 3D printer that allows us to “print” our healthy cookies at home. It is a project still under development by Clara Talens, PhD in Technological Management and Food Science at the Polytechnic University of Valencia. 

Erik Matthijs has a PhD in Agricultural Economics from the University KU Leuven and brought the theme of circular economy in food systems to the Conference. He argues that there must be a balance between local and global consumption, so that food systems become more sustainable. But for that, there is still a lot of hard work to do, as it is not easy to “dismantle” the global food system, as we know it, in order to make adjustments. At the same time, he presented some ideas to favour the circular economy, such as taxing all polluting products that enter the supply chain, among others.

The Smart Food Grid project, developed by the FH JOANNEUM University of Applied Sciences, is a project that is studying the application of local consumption to the Austrian city of Graz. The main objective is that in 2030, 30% of the food comes from a place up to 30 km away from local consumption.

For more information about this work, you can access www.fh-joanneum.at/en/projekt/smart-food-grid-graz/.

Last but not the least, there is a project that takes place between three Universities in South Africa that try to understand the sources of South African food problems, as part of the population is malnourished and has food shortages and another suffers from obesity and overweight-related illnesses. They work with some communities and, in addition to determining the root of food problems, they find out what are the critical points and try to insert existing technology, to solve those same points, in order to avoid food insecurity.

To conclude and for the most skeptical, here is a “proof" on how the scientific community is not apart from the issue of food sustainability and that, it is not just a “fashion theme" but a real concern.