“Nutritious food is not always available and available food is not always nutritious.” The recent report “Good food is good business” of the Gates Foundation and the Institute for the Future explores opportunities for food business, based on emerging trends and technologies, to create more affordable, accessible, appealing and nutritious food for lower-income consumers over the next decade. Lower-income consumers are a rapidly growing market that cannot be ignored. On average they buy 75-90% of their food (as opposed to homegrown), of which 50-70% is processed food. These figures rise year by year. But the private sector is lagging behind. According to the report, now is the time for bold and game-changing innovations in the food sector in low and middle-income countries. Such as the use of big data to make it easier to develop products and distribute them to low-income consumers. The creativity of traditional culinary and agricultural wisdom that should be used in product innovation in co-ownership with low-income consumers. Blockchain that can make supply chains more transparent. Gut flora knowledge that can help to make the shift from diarrhoea prevention to microbiota management. These examples really are audacious and an invitation for a paradigm shift in the role of food business in our fight against malnutrition.
Source: the report can be found here: http://www.iftf.org/fileadmin/user_upload/images/ourwork/Food_Futures_Lab/IFTF_Good_Food_is_Good_Business.pdf