Speaking
at the Seeds and Chips food innovation summit, Obama spoke at length on his
concerns around climate change, drawing particular attention to the link to
food production and food waste. It was not all doom and gloom however; the
President’s message was largely one of hope and opportunity.
"When
I was in office climate change was my top priority. Our food system is a
significant contributor to climate change," said the 44th President of the
United States in his opening remarks. "The path to a sustainable food
future will require creativity and investment ... but this planet is not
condemned. These are problems caused by man that can be solved by man. None of
this is impossible."
But what else
happened? Here are five things we learnt at Seeds and Chips 2017.
THE ONLY WAY IS UP
“Vertical
farming shows us the way to go,” – so said Professor Tom Boyde of the
University of Hong Kong. Vertical farming products were everywhere at Seeds and
Chips, from large-scale commercial urban agriculture solutions to small
contraptions for the keen amateur gardener, in all shapes and sizes. The
Association for Vertical Farming were on hand to answer questions.
THE RESTAURANT OF THE
FUTURE IS DIGITAL
Construction
and hunting are the only industries less digitised than the restaurant industry
we were told, but that is set to change. Online booking service The Fork
reported that in Italy at least, 80% of online bookings are now made through a
mobile app and the company implored restaurants to take advantage of the
opportunities online booking has to offer, by, for example, offering excusive
online deals outside of peak times. According to Konstantin Zvereff, CEO and
founder of BlueCart, “The future of the hospitality industry is aggregation.”
The BlueCart app is an all in one system of procurement for restaurants and
Zvereff suggested that the restaurants of the future would use apps like his to
crowdsource user data, the “most valuable resource in the world,” according to
Tellspec’s Isabel Hoffman.
OBAMA WANTS US TO EAT
LESS BEEF
Former
US President Barack Obama is huge steak lover, as we learned from his conversational
address with former White House chef and policy advisor Sam Kass (Kass: “We’ve
had thousands of steaks together,” Obama: “Well not thousands.”), but he wants
us all to be eating less beef to help cut down on carbon emissions. “I think
people naturally understand... air pollution, so they can make the connection
between air pollution and greenhouse gasses. People aren’t as familiar with the
impact of cows,” he said.
FOOD SWAMPS
We
learnt a new and unpleasant phrase at Seeds and Chips 2017. A ‘food swamp,’ as
explained by Sudhvir Singh, Director of Policy at the Eat Foundation, is a
region, town, neighbourhood, etc. flooded with unhealthy food options, with
limited access to nutritious alternatives. The Eat Foundation’s ambition is to
“reform the global food system and enable us to feed a growing global
population with healthy food from a healthy planet.”
BACON SEAWEED
Remember
that bacon-flavoured seaweed we introduced you to a couple of years ago? Turns
out it doesn’t really taste like bacon at all. It’s still delicious though, and
healthy. If you’re more interested in seaweed-flavoured seaweed, here are eight
edible seaweeds to try.
All images:
Seeds and Chips
By Tom Jenkins/
FDL