Healthy food for all at scale

Covid-19 has highlighted the fragility of our current food systems and as we seek to rebuild them, we must simultaneously address their impact on human and environmental health. At the Forum for the Future of Agriculture annual event, I attended a panel discussing the urgent need for the delivery of healthy food for all at scale. The participants argued that our food systems need dramatic reorganisation — they have largely failed to end world hunger, the task for which they were originally designed, and they are understood to cause 1/3 of all human-caused greenhouse gas emissions. Aside from this, populations across the globe have seen a significant increase in diet-related health issues such as obesity and type 2 diabetes.

The panel featured: Shenggen Fan, Chair Professor and Dean for the Academy of Global Food Economics and Policy at the China Agricultural University; Lawrence Haddad, Executive Director at GAIN; Brent Loke, Global Food Lead Scientist at WWF; and Berry J Marttin, Member of the Managing Board at Rabobank. The panel unanimously agreed that food security must be achieved within environmental limits and without undermining ecosystem health. Current food systems are focused on economic gain and they suggested that sustainable transitions require balancing economic concerns with environmental and societal ones.

Within our current globalised food system, it would be almost impossible to prevent consumers from purchasing products that come with a detrimental environmental impact. Yet, as panel members suggested, if our transport systems are decarbonised and environmentally centred policies are enacted by governments around the world, the total impact of individual products would be minimised. As we continue to trade food globally, it seems that strategic decisions based on where food can be grown most effectively will also need to occur. One of the potential solutions highlighted by the panel was the concept of true pricing, whereby the price of food reflects both the environmental cost and its nutritional value. Foods with a detrimental environmental and health impact would be priced higher than those to the contrary. This is an intriguing idea, and one that would certainly encourage consumers to make more sustainable purchasing decisions. As with many potential solutions to our food system problems, however, it would likely face heavy opposition from food producers who would bear the economic brunt of such changes; the panel highlighted that any attempted changes to the way we produce, buy, and eat food will require a careful balancing act of interests to ensure that such changes are embraced by the majority. If we are to feed 10 billion people by 2050, our global food systems need to be reassessed and redesigned to meet both the problems of today, and those of the future. World leaders, scientists, entrepreneurs, and investors must consider all options that facilitate the production of sustainable, nutritious food for all at scale.

AgriTech Highlights: March 2021

It’s reported that in 2020, the stock market listings for AgriTech startups grew eightfold, to more than US$31 billion. This year is set to be another exciting year for AgriTech, with innovative collaborations and products. Here’s a roundup of some of the developments over the last month.

My personal highlight came from attending the World Agri-Tech Summit, where I heard from leading agribusinesses, growers, tech companies, startups and investors in the industry. My key takeaway from the event was the huge potential for acceleration within the industry, and the creation of innovative products, services, and technologies to help us realise our global food security goals. NASA Harvest and CropX Partnership NASA Harvest and CropX have announced their partnership to support sustainable agriculture. NASA Harvest’s mission includes improving food security and advancing sustainable agriculture, supporting farmer productivity while preserving natural resources worldwide through the use of satellite data. CropX is a global leader in soil analytics for agriculture, and by working with NASA Havest, they will provide farmer and industry experts with the data and information they need to improve farming sustainability by conserving resources and improving crop yields. Hydrofarm introduces new products Hydrofarm Holdings Group’s new products are ushering in a new age for sustainable indoor farming., As the leading manufacturer of hydroponics equipment and commercial horticultural products, Hydrofarm has announced new products, expanding their innovative offering in lighting, climate control, nutrients and growing. This offering includes the Rock Rootinator, fortifying plants against negative environmental stress and helps bring plants back to health with a Super Charge Root Tonic. AeroFarms AeroFarms, a vertical farming startup, is going public through a SPAC deal, valued at US$1.2 billion, which will close in quarter two of this year. AeroFarms is a leader in the world of vertical farming, and they have developed patented and award-winning technology in plant biology, mechanical design, environmental control, data science, operations and plant genetics. AlgaEnergy becomes a B Corproation AlgaEnergy is the first company in its sector to become a B corporation with its innovative work in the industrial development of microalgae biotechnology. B Corp is the only standard that measures a company’s entire social and environmental performance, transparency, and accountability.

March Round Up: FoodTech Highlights

I attended the Future FoodTech Summit this month and was delighted to hear from ambitious players across the industry. As an investor in plant-based egg replacement JUST Egg, it was exciting to hear about how the alternative protein industry is continuing to accelerate. Here are some headlines from the FoodTech industry from the last month - March has been a particularly exciting time to be an investor in meat alternatives, both cellular and plant-based.

Global Alternative Protein Investment This month, new data from the Good Food Institute has shown that global alternative protein investment tripled to US$3.1 billion in 2020. This is triple any investment seen in a single year in the industry’s history, and includes investments made in plant-based meats, egg, and dairy, cultivated meat and fermentation companies working on alternative proteins. This funding will facilitate further research and development and enable more consumers access to alternative protein products. The Livekindly Collective The Livekindly Collective, the parent company of many plant-based good brands, has closed its latest funding round at $335 million, by securing $103 billion of investment from TPG. The collective has plans to expand in both America and China. This is an extremely exciting development and shows that investors are continually interested in plant-based food brands. Meatable Meatable, a Netherlands-based foodtech startup, is pioneering ways to make real meat without the need to harm the environment or animals and hopes to reach consumer markets in 2025. They take cells from an unharmed cow or pig, and use it to replicate the natural process of fat and muscle growth, mixing together muscle and fat cells in proportions that emulate traditional cuts of meat. The disruptive potential of cellular based meats is recognised by investors, and they have secured $47 million of funding from BSM. Sanatech Seed Sanatech Seed, a Japanese startup, have announced the sale of their new tomato seeds, the first genome edited tomato to be brought to market. This variety contains high levels of an amino acid believed to aid relaxation and help lower blood pressure, and is the first of several varieties of tomato it plants to develop with enhanced nutritional benefits.

Women Entrepreneurs in AgriTech

There's no question that technology is revolutionising farming. Agriculture is now infinitely smarter thanks to the many 'Agripreneurs' whose companies offer sensors, robotics, 3D printing, cloud-based computing, and artificial intelligence. Drones and connected machines are more affordable, giving rise to smart devices for farming suppliers and service providers, allowing the exchange of vast amounts of data. Farming is also becoming more precise with risk mitigation strategies to manage conditions such as weather informed by big data, and predictive analytics enabling real-time simulations. Early-stage investment in AgriTech startups reached $10.1 billion in 2017; as the population grows, this market will only grow. However, only 3% of investment dollars and 7% of deals out of 8,000 agriculture and food-tech investments from 2015-2018 went to women-founded startups. ‘Money Where Our Mouths Are’ (MWOMA), a report conducted by AgFunder, The New Food Economy and Karen Karp & Partners, revealed the dire reality for women founders in AgriTech; it's harder for them to raise money for their ventures than it is for their male counterparts. Women are being given less capital even though their businesses deliver higher revenue and are the fastest-growing. Many studies have shown that companies with more gender-diverse teams, especially at the top management level, achieve higher financial returns, higher innovation levels, and increased efficiency. Women, in all likelihood, are even more equipped to lead in the food and agriculture sectors, given that women make 85-90% of purchasing decisions in their households – decisions around food, health, or family care. Melinda Gates has pledged $1 billion for driving women-led enterprises and the mobilisation of women to positions of power and influence. Given the challenges faced by previous generations of women, I've always felt very fortunate to be a woman investor in the modern world, currently heading up investment firm NJF Capital. While the future of women-led businesses excites me, these findings show just how far there is to go before women have an equal investment opportunity, particularly in AgriTech. From within our NJF Capital portfolio, we are proud to support several women-led businesses, each tackling relevant problems worldwide. For example, Swarm Technologies, founded in 2016 by Dr Sara Spangelo or Elvie, co-founded by Tania Boler in 2014, one of the rapidly growing FemTech sector pioneers. AgriTech as a sector faces many challenges in its future, especially as climate change's effects start to take hold. I am excited to see how women entrepreneurs in AgriTech contribute to lasting change in the industry.

Action Track 1: Ensuring Access to Safe and Nutritious Food For All

As part of the United Nations Food Systems Summit 2021, I attended the Public Forum, Action Track 1: Ensure Access to Safe and Nutritious Food for All. I heard from Lawrence Haddad with Global Alliance For Improved Nutrition (GAIN), and Corinna Hawkes, Lead on the Working Group for Nutritious Foods. Lawrence Haddad, Chair of Action Track 1 presented the group’s structure, to promote transparency, and encourage feedback on their projects. The leadership team has grown to 70, as more membership states have joined. The three working groups encompass: Zero Hunger, Nutritious Foods, and Food Safety, each working with Levers of Change in human rights, gender, innovation, and finance to come up with ideas and improve nutrition. The team generate ideas within their working groups, google forms, and interacting with a range of stakeholders. The team then work on ideas in three simultaneous ways. Identifying candidate ideas, and assessing for potential impact, whilst identifying and building support for the idea, ensuring it is sustainable, and operationalising the idea, making it potentially actionable. Haddad outlined the ten ideas they are currently working on, including African Youth for Agricultural Transformation, Strengthening Land Governance, Wiping Out Wasting, and Diverse Diets for Young Children. Corinna Hawkes, Lead on the Working Group for Nutritious Foods, highlighted how game changer ideas are necessary but must work on how to make that change, not just identifying the fundamentals that need to change. The aim should be game-changing in the context of people’s real lives, and be purposefully designed to change the rules of the game. These collective actions should then lead to a fundamental shift in the way food systems operate, offering benefits across food system outcomes. A current problem, is that ‘unhealthy’ foods are affordable, appealing, and everywhere, unlike nutritious foods. This issue can be tackled in many ways, including equitable food marketing, creating more transparency around food and global coordination for food environment policies for healthier children. An investment of mine, Aloha, aims to combat ‘unhealthy’ foods by introducing clean, organic plant-based snacking alternatives without sacrificing on taste, thereby boosting consumer nutrition. As an investor within the food industry I am excited to see the collaborations that materialise as a result of this public forum to boost awareness of the innovative solutions being developed by companies like Aloha to the issues surrounding global nutrition.

Impact of the pandemic on art and culture

The year 2020 has been a time of crisis and innovation for all business areas, especially for the art world. As the virus spread across the globe, cultural institutions were forced to close. The Metropolitan Museum of Art closed on March 13th, ten days before New York went into lockdown. By the time Britain imposed social-distancing measures on March 23rd, the four Tate galleries and the National Gallery had shut. The large galleries in cities with usually reliable international tourism found the travel bans incredibly harmful to business. However, many smaller museums have seen a new wave of interest from locals.

In response to their premises closing, museums worldwide have upped their digital offerings with online exhibits, curator video chats, and many virtual kids' activities. Many are also re-thinking their reach and collections in a time of accelerated technological change and reflecting on how racial and social injustice are reflected in their art. For instance, last month, Tate celebrated LGBTIQA+ month with QueerTate Festival and premiered the special live online performance Resilient Responses, filmed in Tate Modern's Tanks during lockdown. Recently Aliza Nisenbaum's compelling new film Painting the NHS explores the story behind her Tate Liverpool exhibition and introduces the NHS key workers who are the subjects of her work. Meanwhile, Tate St Ives has worked closely with Vocal Eyes to produce two audio and video descriptions for the blind and partially sighted, including Barbara's Hepworth's Two Forms Divided Circle and Marlow Moss's White and Yellow. No museum has escaped the uncertainty brought about by national lockdowns and decline in revenue in revenue. In May 2020, the International Council of Museums surveyed museums in 106 countries about the pandemic's early effects, finding that more than 80% of them expected to reduce programming, and 10% might permanently close. When Tate closed its galleries at the end of March 2020, they had just experienced one of the most successful years, welcoming record visitor figures to many of our galleries. Tate galleries have been closed for almost six months in total and have seen only 20% of previous visitor numbers when open. However, they and so many other cultural institutions are determined to do everything in their power to secure their long-term future ‘for our colleagues, our visitors, for artists and future generations.’

Nicole Junkermann and Real Madrid: the Future of Broadcasting Services in Sport

The rise of technology has transformed the way we are consuming all forms of media, and the sports industry is no exception. A report from Drake Star Partners forecast that the global sports technology sector will reach $31.1billion by 2024.

However, in these unprecedented times, the restrictive lockdown measures in place across the world have shattered the industry. In September, fans were told “to prepare for no spectators throughout the winter”. The financial impact of the pandemic continues to severely affect many teams, with FIFA having estimated a loss of nearly £11 billion to the football industry. Real Madrid experienced modest revenue decline with an income with €681.2m (£607m) through cost-cutting measures including 10% salary cuts applied to all their players and summer sales. Real Madrid’s director of public relations Butragueno, said at the World Football Summit: “I think the football industry has to adjust to this new situation... In the meantime we need to be both creative and be flexible enough to adapt ourselves to the new situations... I think it's really important to understand that this is not a football crisis, this is a global crisis and football is part of the world and part of an economy which is struggling.” It is clear that this crisis has accelerated the need for all major sports to embrace change to survive, for example by utilising streaming services in a growing technological landscape, although this particular initiative has not been without controversy. Streaming for some appears to be one of the few lifelines, outside of direct financial support from the government. I have been involved in and followed the sports broadcasting industry from the outset of my career and it has been a fascinating journey to see how the market has evolved into the huge mainstream global industry it is today. In recent years, the way that fans have been able to consume and experience live sporting events has changed at a rapid pace. Now, the pandemic has altered the sports broadcasting landscape, possibly forever. While the future is hazy as to when stadiums, grounds, and sporting arenas will re-open to the public, one thing we certainly know is the future of sports broadcasting will have technology at the forefront.