WP6 - Towards sustainable food processing, retailing and consumption.

The aim of WP6 is to develop and evaluate post-farm production systems with minimised GHG emissions and significantly reduced environmental impact and resource use, while at the same time safeguarding resource efficiency, food safety and product quality. To do that a working process, or methodology, is being developed to address this very broad and complex challenge.

The methods development has involved researchers as well as companies and to some extent public authorities. The method consists of four distinct steps in a type of design process, where the grand questions on systems sustainability is connected to concrete aspects in food supply chain.

The process itself as well as the results from applying the method increases all actors understanding of challenges and opportunities, which will support sound decision-making.

So far, we have focused on changes in a relatively short time horizon, work encompassing longer perspectives will start in 2023.

Main research questions:

  • How should the food value chain of the future be designed to contribute to a sustainable food system? Which technologies, new products, raw material use, packaging, etc. have the greatest potential and how should they be combined to deliver the best performance at the system level?
  • What is the potential of sustainability performance of the above systems?
  • How can improved sustainability performance be combined with increased food safety and food quality parameters, including nutritional quality?
  • How can different solutions, be it technical or organizational, be implemented in current structures and what solutions need a longer time frame and further transitions of the system before they become viable?
  • What are the risks of lock-in effects of implementing new solutions?
  • How is the sustainability performance of supply chain solutions affected by geography, surrounding systems and demographics?