Category: Podcast Country

Posted in: Sweden

Södertälje Municipality's Sara Jervfors on the school lunch diet for a green planet

Since 2010, Södertälje Municipality in Sweden has served public school lunches that are healthy for students and the planet. The initiative is known as Diet for a Green Planet. 

Our guest today is Sara Jervfors who is the Head of the Diet Unit in Södertälje Municipality and an architect of the system. We talk about what a diet for a green planet is, how more municipalities could transform their lunches to meet these parameters, what incentives are missing to encourage such a diet, and how parents and kids have responded.

  • 4:30 Details of the program
  • 11:50 How kids vs parents respond to new food initiatives
  • 15:40 The ripple effect on the community
  • 18:30 What’s missing to revive local food ecosystems
  • 23:50 The role of politicians 

This episode is part of Taste the Transition, a series of lunch conversations during the COP25 climate negotiations highlighting individuals taking climate action through food. Tell us your vision for the food system on www.nordicfoodtech.io/answer or by using the hashtag #NordicClimateAction

Posted in: Sweden

Stockholm Resilience Centre’s Amanda Wood on the science-backed diet that can transform the world

In this episode, we address what we know from science when it comes to adopting diets that support a healthy, sustainable food system. My guest is Amanda Wood who is a researcher at the Stockholm Resilience Centre. Launched in 2007, the Centre’s vision is to advance a world where social-ecological systems are understood, governed and managed to not only enhance human well-being, but also enable the sustainable co-evolution of human civilizations with the biosphere.

Amanda’s work intersects science, policy and practice to inform food systems transformations for sustainability and health. This includes working with and informing decision-makers, organizations and networks who can influence change. Amanda was a co-author of the influential EAT Lancet report and subsequently wrote an analysis on how the Nordic food system would have to be transformed in order to meet the report’s recommendations. 

  • 7:30 Five actions areas that will transform the food system
  • 19:00 Vision for the future food system
  • 26:50 Wishlist for change from policy makers
  • 31:00 Research areas we’re still missing to move forward
  • 35:30 Signs that the food system is changing for the better
Posted in: Denmark Finland Norway Sweden

ReGeneration 2030's Emil Vincentz on the youth's vision for our future food system

Emil Vincentz started his climate activism as a 12 year old. Today he is in his 20s and a member of Regeneration 2030, a movement led by teenagers and young adults in the Nordic and Baltic Sea Regions focused on making the United Nation’s sustainable development goals a reality. He is also the founder of Symplistic, a company helping private and public organizations implement concrete solutions on environmental sustainability.

At the Nordic COP25 in Stockholm, ReGeneration 2030 will be presenting their views on the future of the food system. Join us as Emil and I discuss what actions ReGeneration 2030 is calling for from policy makers, what it’s like to be a young person advocating for the future today, and ways to champion the next generation.

  • 6:00 An inside look into youth climate activism
  • 18:30 Key issues talked about in Emil’s circle (it might surprise you) 
  • 20:50 Actions for policymakers and vision for the future
  • 32:30 How you should engage youth in your community
  • 38:25 The role of parents and what it means to be a good ancestor 

This episode is part of Taste the Transition, a series of lunch conversations during the COP25 climate negotiations highlighting individuals taking climate action through food. Tell us your vision for the food system on www.nordicfoodtech.io/answer or by using the hashtag #NordicClimateAction

Posted in: Denmark Finland Norway Sweden

Nordic Food Policy Lab’s Marie Persson on taking climate action through food

The Nordic Food Policy Lab was launched by the 5 prime ministers of the Nordic countries in 2017 to curate and share examples of Nordic food policy for health and sustainability. They do this through global partnerships and dialogues. Their goal is meet the UN Sustainable Development Goals through food policy. They also help other countries in achieving the goals.

In this episode, Marie Persson provides an overview of what is happening within food policy across the Nordics. We also take a look at the COP25 UN climate negotiations from a Nordic angle and what a sustainable, healthy diet looks like.

  • 7:30 Overview of the Nordics strengths and weaknesses when it comes to food & food policy
  • 9:40 Why food is such a tricky political conversation
  • 16:30 Examples of individuals taking climate action through food
  • 20:20 What is needed for policy to encourage sustainable production and consumption
  • 25:35 Why more chefs and behavioral psychologists are needed in politics

This episode is part of Taste the Transition, a series of lunch conversations during the COP25 climate negotiations highlighting individuals taking climate action through food. Tell us your vision for the food system on www.nordicfoodtech.io/answer or by using the hashtag #NordicClimateAction

Posted in: Denmark Norway Sweden

Too Good To Go’s Mikkel Fog Holm-Nielsen on fighting food waste

Too Good To Go enables consumers to buy food that would otherwise be thrown out at the end of the day. The idea started in Denmark and has quickly spread across Europe with everyone from mom and pop bakeries to big grocery retailers getting on board. Today they’ve saved some 25.5 million meals and opened up a new customer segment for many food businesses. 

In this episode, we speak with Mikkel Fog Holm-Nielsen who runs special projects for Too Good To Go’s management team. Join us as we discuss their ambitious strategy to fight food waste across multiple fronts. By 2020, they aim to work with 75,000 businesses, inspire 50 million people to reduce their household food waste, impact regulation in 5 countries, and have a food waste curriculum in 500 schools.

  • 2:00 How Too Good To Go got started
  • 5:40 Creating a business around food waste
  • 14:10 Vision for the future food system and what’s missing to get there 
  • 17:20 How they are fighting food waste via business, politics, education, and household behavior 
  • 27:30 Company culture and why much of the team from Endomondo, which sold to Under Armour for $85 million, joined Too Good To Go
Posted in: Finland

Arla Digital’s Tomi Sirén on using tech to drive FMCG’s sustainability agenda forward

Arla is the 5th largest dairy company in the world. Owned by 12,500 farmers across seven countries, they have an ambition to become the most transparent value chain in dairy.

In today’s episode, we discuss this ambition with Tomi Sirén who is the head of Digital and Technological Innovations at Arla. Based in Finalnd, he’s spearheading a variety of projects focused on moving their sustainability agenda forward with emerging technologies including the Arla Milkchain. Listen in as we talk about:

  • 5:30 Arla’s digital transformation
  • 9:00 Arla Milkchain – how they are using blockchain to trace their products and animal welfare (see video)
  • 21:00 Collaborations Arla is looking for and what obstacles they are facing to scale
  • 26:00 Other sustainability projects at Arla
  • 28:40 Vision for the future and what we’re missing to get there
Posted in: Sweden

Almi Invest’s Karin Ebbinghaus on investing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions

Almi Invest is Sweden’s most active startup investor. With 3 billion SEK under management, they make about 50 new investments each year and have invested in 660 companies overall, some of which have been acquired by Google, Microsoft, and Apple or IPOed at a billion kroner level on the stock market. 

Join us as we speak with investment manager Karin Ebbinghaus about Almi’s GreenTech fund, which only invests in companies that reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The fund has about 650 million SEK under management or 60 million euro. Listen in as we talk about:

  • 3:50 Almi’s investment thesis 
  • 15:10 What a GreenTech model looks 
  • 17:35 How to measure a GreenTech model’s impact
  • 21:20 How Almi’s GreenTech fund is linked to Swedens’ national strategy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2050
  • 30:10 Almi’s vision for FoodTech ecosystem in 10-15 years
Posted in: Denmark

Amass’s Kim Wejendorp on how they’ve made fine dining sustainable

Amass has been recognized multiple times not only as one of the best restaurants in the world, but also as one of the most sustainable.

For them, a zero waste kitchen has been an incredible creative constraint inspiring major changes to how this fine dining institution cooks, recycles, sources, and operates in their local environment.

Today the restaurant’s food and ingredients are 90% organic. Food waste has been reduced by 75% since they started in 2013 and their annual water consumption is done by 5,200 liters. The restaurant’s facilities also include a garden with 80 varietiels of plants and an aquaponic farming system.

A Native New Zealander, Kim Wejendorp was the Sous Chef at Amass Restaurant in Copenhagen before becoming their head of R&D. In this conversation, we talk about how they undertook the transition to sustainability, the creative process that produces a zero waste kitchen, and what kind of partners and innovations they are looking to partner with.

Posted in: Sweden

AgFo’s Frida Jonson on the role of journalism from farm to fork

Not long ago, Frida Jonson and her co-founder Lovisa Madås realized that the FoodTech and AgTech worlds were unfolding in parallel. No journalism outlet was covering all sides of the story from farm to fork. So, they started AgFo, a digital media outlet covering the intersection of agriculture and food in Sweden. 

AgFo’s journalists travel all over the country reporting on different trends, perspectives, and innovations in the food system. Today, Frida gives us a front row seat to the conversations being had, the emerging trends, and collaborations to look out for. We also discuss why journalism is important for ecosystem development and connecting diverse communities.

Posted in: Norway

Hatch’s Carsten Krome on why aquaculture is the fastest growing sector in animal farming

Aquaculture is the farming of fish. As the fastest growing sector in animal food production, the industry has started to attract the interest of Silicon Valley. This might also be because aquaculture is some 20 years behind traditional agriculture in terms of development leaving it ripe for innovation.

We speak with Carsten Krome who is the Managing Partner of Hatch, the first global aquaculture accelerator program operating across Norway, Hawaii and Singapore and an investor into aquaculture with the fund Alimentos Ventures. He provides an excellent introduction to the aquaculture world and what we can look forward to in this space. 

Carsten has his own entrepreneurial experience through his start-up as a prawn farmer in Malaysia and he holds a Ph.D. in feed science from the University of Stirling as well as a Masters in Marine Biology from the University of Kiel in Germany.