A recipe for success: three crucial ingredients for the EU’s Farm to Fork Strategy
Following the publication of the EU’s Farm to Fork Strategy six months ago, policymakers acknowledge that the future of food is dependent – now more than ever – on innovative solutions that challenge the industry status quo. While the Strategy has defined a series of ambitious goals, debate now concentrates on the ‘how’. The Farm to Fork Strategy is the theory but now we need the practice.
Innovation is part of the answer. If done right, it can be disruptive and drive monumental change. It can remove obsolete solutions from the food system and inject healthy competition into the market. Best realised through a combination agrifood sector knowledge and policy interventions, and ‘pulls’ guided by consumer trends, choices and preferences, innovation can truly empower consumers to make sustainable and healthy choices – just as the Farm to Fork Strategy recognises.
The recent growth of plant-based products is one such example. After an impressive wave of innovation, alternative protein products are moving from niche to mainstream, with the European meat alternatives market now accounting for around 40% of the global market and forecast to grow to €2.4bn by 2025.[1]
But if innovation is the motor propelling change in our food system, consumers are the ones in the driving seat. Their choices and purchasing behaviour indicate what they are prepared to pay for, and therefore which innovative solutions, products and services they are ready to pull into the market.
Great research will only deliver impact when it becomes innovation in the marketplace and meets consumer demand. But how are we going to inject this dynamism into the agrifood sector? And how are we going to mobilise the great forces of consumer choice and behaviour to achieve this transformation, while catering for the needs and expectations of all the players in the value chain?
Our recipe includes three main ingredients.
