Global Food Outlook
feedFood sustains and nourishes us, and it also increasingly connects us to a global food web that is intertwined with politics, economics, environmental concerns, culture, and science. This global food web is undergoing rapid change, presenting considerable challenges and significant opportunities. At the Institute for the Future (IFTF), our research and forecasts explore the tensions and possibilities of the food landscape. The Global Food Outlook Program provides a distinctive perspective on the global food web, food markets, and the connections and discontinuities between every day choices and large-scale challenges. We help organizations work with foresights, disruptions and dilemmas to develop insights and strategic tools to increase their effectiveness and resilience in a volatile world.
Disruptions are coming from different directions. Consumer tastes are straining the capacity of the food system. Distrust of the origins and safety of food is mounting across the globe. The growing awareness of the relationship between food and health is becoming critical to food choices, policy, and brand identity. Food security is becoming ever more complex in the face of price volatility and supply swings due to diminished capacity driven by climate change. And looming environmental emergencies, like water and soil depletion, threaten to disrupt agriculture, food transport, and other food system activities. At the same time, increased scrutiny on the environmental costs of food is increasing demand for sustainability metrics. How will you respond to these disruptions?
Rod Falcon | Director, Global Food Outlook Program
Miriam Lueck-Avery | Research Director, Global Food Outlook Program
For more information about becoming a member of the Global Food Outlook Program, please contact Dawn Alva, dalva@iftf.org (650-233-9585).
What 50 Cent Can Teach us About the Future of Empathetic Foods
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I have to admit, I kind of scoffed when I read the following headline: “Gas-Flushed Sandwiches Stay Fresh for Two Weeks.” The corresponding article explained that Booker Group, the UK’s largest food and drink wholesaler, is “launching chicken tikka and cheese ploughmans sandwiches, among others, it insists will remain fresh for 14 days.”
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A couple weeks ago, Google released a new dashboard service that lets people know when they have been mentioned, for better or worse, by someone else on the Internet. It's the automated version of googling oneself--and it underscores an idea that seems to be gaining a lot of traction,...
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Or, at least that seems to be the underlying contention of a group of farmers in...
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Honey Laundering and Authenticity
It's hard to find just one or two things to excerpt from Jessica Leeder's great investigation into the large amount of global crime that has grown up around something as simple as honey. It turns out that, in response to U.S....
Flavor Trip Your Way to Health
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Will Your Bacon be Caffeinated?
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The Salmon Pairs Well with Miles Davis
An interesting study sponsored by Unilever took a look at how background music and sound alter the perception of taste. Among other things, that "foods seemed to taste less salty or sugary as the noise level increase – and more so when noise decreases."
The study reminds...
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Every half hour, an in-house lab analyzes the...
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Broccoli: The Next National Security Imperative
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Your Friends as Salespeople
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Food Web 2020 Future Forces Report
Food sustains and nourishes us, and it also increasingly connects us to a global food web that is intertwined with politics, economics, environmental concerns, culture, and science. This global food web is undergoing rapid change, presenting considerable challenges and significant opportunities. Every one of the six broad areas of activity in the food system—agriculture and stewardship,...
What a new Beer can Tell Us About the Future of Local Food
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Sustain Saskatchewan
"Trees make the prairies tolerable."
PARC researcher Norm Henderson's comment was met by knowing laughs in a small conference room in Saskatoon. I couldn't exactly share their sentiment: I grew up on the West Coast, all over the West Coast, but always no more than an hour or two from a forest and/or mountains. The crowd had come to learn...
