Speciality Food Feb/March 2024

8 Back. “Young people’s perspectives through our real lived experiences are essential for food and drink companies to make the changes necessary to protect child health.” The founder of Future Food Movement, Kate Cawley, added, “We can’t deliver net zero without delivering on health. We need the food industry to be bold and adopt a braver approach to shift consumers towards healthier and more sustainable diets. This isn’t about winning over consumer hearts and minds, it’s about putting competition aside to find solutions that work for the next generation to build a healthier and climate smart food system.” Kate said the Accelerator will give businesses a commercial advantage, helping them to become more sustainable, upskilling their teams, and enabling them to integrate youth insights into their thinking to help inform, shape and support product development. She continued, “Consumers expect the products they buy to be healthier, without having to change their eating and drinking habits, and with benefits for everyone, regardless of income, ethnicity The Future Food Movement (FFM), the food sector’s climate upskilling partner and food industry disruptor, and Bite Back, a youth activist movement working to make the food system healthier and more sustainable for future generations, have partnered to launch the UK’s first industry-leading business programme to create meaningful change for young people and the planet. The Food Systems Accelerator is a bold two-year programme which will challenge senior leaders of leading food businesses to collaborate and find evidence-based solutions to healthy and sustainable diets that will ensure the UK leads on both the climate and health agenda. It mixes youth voices from Bite Back activists, who are demanding food and drink companies take action to make it easier to eat healthily, with experts in food system transformation guiding participants to develop a future of food which delivers win-win for health and business success. “To perpetuate change in the food system we need to work together,” said Becky Odoi at Bite or education. The Government is looking for the industry to step-up and be on the right side of history. Brands that successfully navigate these issues will ultimately reap the commercial rewards.” The Accelerator programme launched with a full day workshop at Waddesdon Manor where businesses heard from young people, collaboratively worked through insights, and discussed strategic health commitments with health and climate experts, with further engagement sessions planned by Future Food Movement. These discussions, said registered public health nutritionist, Ali Morpeth, are vital. “We are facing a dual challenge of illness driven by poor diets and undernutrition in the UK while the systems that produce our food impact on the environment,” she explained. “A healthier diet is also more sustainable, but we are currently in a situation whereby the average UK diet does not meet the criteria our government set out as healthy. This Food Systems Accelerator programme is pioneering in its approach on working at the food system level to impact the whole supply chain and drive better outcomes for people and planet.” Sustainable diets under themicroscope in new programme Cactus cookies, banana peel snacks and wrinkled pea pasta are leading the charge in an innovative food design challenge Contenders for sustainable foods of the future revealed The Food Systems Accelerator has been created by food and drink businesses in collaboration with young people Foods designed to be kinder to the planet are one step closer to reaching supermarket shelves having been invited to the next stage of the Big Food Redesign Challenge. Launched in 2023 by the EllenMacArthur Foundation, in partnership with the Sustainable Food Trust, the challenge tasked participants with designing new products, or redesigning existing ones, using circular economy principles which help nature to thrive and address climate change. Innovative concepts from400 applicants (both start-ups and household names) included cookies, juice, yoghurts, gin and pasta. Entries were received from across the world, including the UK, US, Africa, Europe and Latin America, andmore than 160 products are now being supported in developing their first designs. As selected products enter the production phase of the challenge, the Foundation is calling on retailers to join its partners –Waitrose and major retail group Grupo Carrefour Brasil – in showcasing food items as early as this year. BethMander, food programme manager at the EllenMacArthur Foundation, said, “Our current food system is a key driver of biodiversity loss, and accounts for a third of global greenhouse gases. We can, andmust, redesign our food to regenerate nature and tackle some of the most pressing global issues facing us today. “It’s encouraging to see such a huge appetite by businesses to rise to the challenge of helping to reshape how we design food for the future. With such an innovative range of product ideas, we hope they will become everyday items on shopping lists. “This is an exciting time for more retailers to get involved and be among the first in the world to offer their customers unique access to food choices which help preserve and restore our planet for future generations.” Joining the next phase of the challenge is UK-based Hodmedod’s and its products made from British peas, beans and grains. The business’s selection of pasta, soups, and dahls are sourced from a type of broad bean and other diverse arable crops grown with regenerative practices that help build soil health. Other submissions include Fortnum&Mason’s in-house distilled Amalthea Dry Gin, which has diversified its source crop by swapping grains with homegrown apples. Old Farmhouse Brewery has also submitted a beer with kelp locally sourced fromWales’ first community- owned regenerative ocean farm. International food corporation Danone has proposed a new yoghurt range for the UK and Irelandmarkets, aiming to source more than 90% of the milk needed through farms that are using regenerative agriculture practices. Golden Hooves, a UK-based subsidiary of First Milk, has submitted a butter and cheese containing ingredients sourced from farmers that are all pledged to the earth’s regeneration. Kenya-based Dunia Bora is in the next phase of the challenge with the use of cacti – traditionally considered an invasive plant – as an ingredient in cookies and juice, farmed using regenerative practices in the country’s arid and semi-arid regions. Meanwhile, submissions from US-based companies include Wildway, which has come up with the idea of using banana and its peel as a nutritious snack and a way of reducing waste, and a different take on traditional jerky by 4 Fungi’s Regenerative which is proposing a plant-based alternative using mushrooms. The Foundation, an international charity committed to creating a circular economy, launched the Big Food Redesign Challenge with support from funds raised by players of People’s Postcode Lottery and awarded through the DreamFund; the Schmidt Family Foundation, and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. Retailers are invited to find out how they can get involved in stocking nature-positive products. Contact the EllenMacArthur Foundation to find out more. @specialityfood