More than any Industry, the food and beverage industry is essential for our survival. This industry is present every day of our lives, when we eat our meals, but beyond that moment too, if we reflect on how much it affects the world around us. The Industry is within the broader sphere of food systems, which are made up of several actors, which will be discussed below. 

Food systems are the processes, people, organizations and entities involved in the production, processing, distribution and/or consumption of food for humans or animals.

These systems are under great pressure for several reasons, to name a few: Climate change is threatening agricultural production with droughts and other extreme events, in Brazil 90% agriculture depends on rain for irrigation; 25.4% of the Brazilian population lives on the poverty line, and a large part lives in the countryside, the Agribusiness and Food and Beverage Industry are already one of the largest employers in the country; ⅓ of all food produced is wasted; the increase in land use and consequent GHG emissions, closely linked to deforestation, broke unprecedented records in 2020; a healthy diet today costs 5 to 11 times more expensive than an unhealthy one; it is estimated that 150 species go extinct every day and the loss of biodiversity directly affects soil fertility for production; The scenario worsened even further with the Covid-19 pandemic and resulting economic crisis.  

So how to deal with such poignant challenges? According to Winston Churchill; never wasting a good crisis, in other words, every challenge is one or several opportunities. It was identified in the FOLU (Food and Land Use Coalition) publication that if we follow the paths identified for sustainable Transformation in Food Systems and land use, there is an opportunity to generate 4.5 billion dollars for the world economy per year by 2030 Some of the paths identified are: promoting regenerative agriculture; healthy and sustainable diets; use of renewable energies; improving rural livelihoods and others. Brazil is the most biodiverse country in the world, with 61% of its territory covered by preserved native vegetation according to Embrapa, in addition to being an important powerhouse of food cultivation technologies, both in scientific/technological terms and traditional knowledge. Therefore, we have the opportunity to lead the low-carbon bioeconomy and finally end the notion of the dichotomy between production and preservation.   

Today we have very complex systems with great distance between their links, which in turn depend on and impact several interested parties. One of the biggest problems with food systems is the difficulty for its actors to recognize themselves as part of the system, and then to act collaboratively to overcome common challenges. Often the individual perspective reigns over a common problem, in the example of food systems, if we take the perspective of an economist we would think that the problem is crop productivity; from a health professional, it would be malnutrition and obesity; from an environmentalist, it would be the preservation of natural resources; a sociologist would say that the problem is the living conditions of workers. If everyone tries to solve their problem separately, what we observe is that the solution to one problem is often the problem of the next. Still in the example above, if the economist optimizes crop productivity without reconciling the environmentalist, the preservation of natural resources may be compromised. In contrast, if we look at the problem as the same, only seen from different perspectives that complement each other, we could implement projects that overcome the different spheres of the challenge, offering a holistic solution, where each person contributes with their expertise, promoting as a result more efficient systems. inclusive, healthy, sustainable resilient.

There is a current movement that seeks to strengthen the links in the food chain through multisectoral collaboration. This movement was triggered, in large part, by market pressure, consumers and global threats such as climate change. The pressure, mainly on companies, generated the consensus that it is not possible for a retailer, for example, to end illegal deforestation alone, or for a processor to become carbon neutral, without engaging the other actors in the system. To meet the demands of today and the future, companies are setting bold carbon neutrality goals, for example, and it will only be possible to meet them through collaboration across the chain and the system as a whole.

Increasingly, the notion of traceability and consideration of impact and/or externality of production is addressed by the business and financial sector. It is no different with food, in some cases it is now possible to see where each item in our shopping cart came from, measure the ecological footprint of each one and know how to dispose of or cycle them responsibly. Technologies, such as Blockchain and Artificial Intelligence, allow traceability and transparency to move forward. Traceability facilitates the identification and accounting of the impacts and externalities of an operation, so that companies can manage them and consider them in their decision-making.      

It is important that people become aware and shorten the path their food takes to reach their plate. This search gave rise to an important movement called Field to Fork, which began in Europe but quickly spread around the globe. The movement mainly encourages the shortening of the food production chain, aiming to increase local production and consumption, bringing the consumer closer to the producer, relying largely on the use of technologies. 

Once we understand each stage of the food path from `´field to fork´´, and map the challenges and actions of the different links, we will be able to identify the bottlenecks to implement and scale collaborative projects. With this logic, the system gains strength to transform and replace issues such as; food waste through circular waste economy; energy inefficiency, due to renewable energy sources; rural poverty, through the generation of jobs with higher qualifications for the low-carbon bioeconomy; GHG emissions from a regulated carbon market; high-calorie, low-nutrient diets to healthy, sustainable plant-based diets.

The observations made above are broad, as the aim here is to generate a holistic reflection of the systems. Each actor has their specific and relevant role for the transformation, but everyone needs to join hands so that decisions can be taken in an inclusive way, considering all interested parties and not just shareholders.