What do crickets, carbon dioxide, and animal cells have in common? The ability to save the world. On Tuesday’s What’s the Big Idea in Sustainability talk at the Fancy Food Show, a trio of speakers showed how they are creating a more sustainable planet earth.
“Eating bugs is not a new idea. People have been eating insects around the world forever,” noted Andrew Brentano, founder of co-founder and CEO of Tiny Farms Inc. By identifying a sustainable way to farm crickets, Brentano’s company is able to feed countless people for a fraction of the resources needed to raise livestock or agriculture. In addition, farming crickets emits less greenhouse gases as well, helping to reduce our carbon footprint. “There is no guidebook for how to grow crickets. You can’t call up your local agriculture office and ask. But we wanted to create a sustainable solution for everyone, so every farmer can get it up and running.” Though it may be a little gross to some, Brentano notes that the “ick” factor is decreased by turning the crickets into powder, which can then be added to everyday products like chips, sauces, pasta, energy bars, or even pet food.
Pasi Vainikka also agrees that need to start looking at food in different ways. “There have been three waves of food production, the fourth is coming.” He goes on to explain how the hunter gatherer, agricultural, and industrial periods have influenced how we eat, but a fourth wave, the “new food revolution” is coming. Vainikka is co-founder and CEO of Solar Foods, which uses renewable energy and carbon dioxide to create a nutrient- and protein-filled powder that is similar to wheat and neutral in taste. “With renewable energy, we are free of the constraints of weather, climate, or agriculture,” he explains, noting that this process uses significantly less water, land, and resources than traditional farming or livestock and meat production.
David Kay, manager of communications and sustainability at Memphis Meats, is also interested in revolutionizing our meat production system. He explained, “Meat is beloved. That’s true across cultures, geographies, and time. In the future, that’s only going to increase.” However, our current meat production process uses one-third of the world’s water and emits 18 percent of greenhouse gasses, while also using up valuable land. His company proposes one small change in the system that can make a huge impact: using a small quantity of cells from livestock that can be harvested and prepared in the same way as traditional meat. In addition to saving precious environmental resources, cell-based meat can lessen bacterial contaminations and reduce food waste.
Each of these innovative processes use simple ideas or materials that can make a large difference in the world. But there’s still a ways to go. As Kay notes, “We believe that food can play a part in the solutions in so many of the sustainable challenges we are facing as a society, but we can’t do it alone.”
from Industry Operations http://bit.ly/2DbDQWz
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