From now to 2070: rethinking the food system from the ground up

Partner and food leader at Deloitte Global, Randy Jagt questioned how we can feed the global population with +1,6 billion people by 2070. About 1,3 trillion extra calories are needed to feed this increase of population. In the meantime farm productivity is projected to reduce by 6% due to climate change. Only Canada and Russia will benefit from climate change with growing productivity, other regions already start to see a reduction of their agriculture output with today’s growing systems. “Heat waves will regularly hit Northern Spain and Southern France by 2050” alerted Randy. Climate-related extremes in the EU sum a cumulated value of more than €650 billion of economic losses of assets over the last 50 years.

Global vision, local action

Within the current market context compagnies also face multiple political, socioeconomical, technological and legal challenges. Overall there are 4 major shifts taking place: from focus on regulation and compliance, to balance regulation with fit for growth and EU competitiveness; from peak interest into innovation to repositioning and scaling; from “wait and see” attitude with digital to the acceleration of digital; from focus on sustainability of our food system to resilience and food security. “Yes we need regulation but also need to keep competitive” claimed Randy. This question came under debate on an earlier panel of the conference, in relation with the new Spanish law on packaging and residues. Spain is indeed the first European country to adopt such regulation.

Transition from linear value chain to an ecosystem

As part of Deloitte vision of a future food system, several factors are likely to change during the transition: new ways to earn money, new types of competition, new opportunities of partnerships and consolidation, new types of risk and data applications.  Acceleration of innovation, technology and productivity improvements shall contribute to more than 50% of the future solutions to feed the world sustainably. According to Deloitte estimates, reducing gas emissions shall represent 21% of the overall improvements, protecting and improving natural capital 19%, enhancing circularity 6%, guiding consumer choice and dietary shifts 4%.

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