Resilient Future for Food Players
We are a global Food Shaper Collective, born during COVID-19, made up of rich talent and radical diversity from five continents (see video). We are passionate and optimistic about a future where food players respond resiliently to shocks/strains and, simultaneously, sustainably feed and elevate humanity.
Note: We began this application with the intention to apply as a Collective, as we understood the project to be spotlighting "heroes." We felt our project's response to one of the world's most critical challenges at this time: resiliently and sustainably feeding humanity-by guiding small food players on how to restart, fit extremely well with the Elevate vision. We learned in the July video of the “individual" focus. However, we stayed our course as our project's unique power rests in our Collective. If selected, we will have, Alana Libow, represent us and engage our team with learnings to enhance our ambition to elevate humanity.
We are committed to helping small sized food players - changemakers who feed their communities - from producers to service providers resiliently restart and build a better future across the world (beginning in 5 distinct geographic regions - N.A., S.A., Europe, Asia, & Africa).
We are proposing to run open access & local trainings for food players, who are traditionally “left behind.” Through our open access trainings and local engagements, we believe we can reach and support food players of the world’s markets and not only enable them to go forward, but also help their economies restart, their communities nourish, and their livelihoods resiliently and sustainably advance. We will begin with a pilot in Miami, FL, N.A.
Our project will elevate humanity because it is responding to the most critical needs across global communities (following and in tandem to the immediate medical/public health crisis) - food security and livelihood regeneration.
The COVID-19 pandemic has severely affected global food businesses as flows have stopped, and people's behaviors have changed. This is an essential time for food businesses to build resiliency to survive and respond to immediate needs during the pandemic, and thrive as we collectively build a better tomorrow.
The challenge of redefining the food system began before the COVID crisis, and has since been exacerbated globally.
Food is the one of the most vital resources for life on Earth. Among a myriad of challenges, the global food system is facing these high-level problems:
A global population approaching 10 billion, greenhouse gasses changing our climate, pollution poisoning our soil, air, and water.
Our current consumption patterns are pushing planetary limits
Soil degradation could be a big problem in nearest time without taking mesure on this problem.
Effects of these challenges, coupled with the COVID pandemic, have caused food businesses and players to pause and close. During the COVID crises we saw how vulnerable small food businesses are. We would like our project to help them review business and operational models in order to build a more resilient food business and better future for food systems and the planet.
We created a hands-on guide for food businesses to shape a better future by adopting resiliency. We take the user through a reflective and practical journey where they learn about the world’s new context and relate it with their vision and purpose to generate creative ideas and discover new business opportunities. We provide food shapers with tools that help them build partnerships, and sustainable and resilient opportunities in response to the external world (society, consumers, & the food system) and their internal world (company, employees and values).
Over the coming months and years as the world and our food system continue to be in crisis and transformation, we aim to engage global food players/shapers in e-trainings, local engagements (where safe), and creative medium (radio/What'sApp) to support regions and people without internet. The Elevate Prize funding will enable us to market and deliver our product across a range of medium and challenged regions. Together we will resiliently restart food businesses and elevate those traditionally left behind who cannot afford to pay for guidance.
We will begin with a pilot taking place virtually and targeted at Miami food shapers during August 2020.
(Please see here and attached for our Guide 2.0)
Our project is mainly for small (and medium) food players (food producers, manufactures, processors, chefs, cafes and restaurants owners, retailers) who are struggling during the COVID-19 crisis. We are targeting those who are working to adapt/solve a challenge and/or looking for new opportunities to restart. We aim for their mentality to be one that is open to turning crisis into an opportunity for transformative change -- to collectively build a more resilient and sustainable food business.
During the first 4 months of COVID, we launched our project and interviewed different food players across 5 continents (Africa, Asia, Europe, South America, & North America). We learned about what problems they are facing, what resources they need, and in what medium they could best access guidance materials and learnings. We also heard stories and share guidance from food shapers who have been resilient in the wake of COVID-19. We understand that our users will be most inspired by their counterparts. And, we interviewed global consumers to learn about what they are feeling during these uncertain times. The collective feedback combined with global market research helped us design a clear and meaningful resource for food players/shapers like them.
- Elevating opportunities for all people, especially those who are traditionally left behind
While our project appears to primarily connect to the Elevate Prize’s first dimension (elevating small food players who are traditionally left behind-details in various answers), our project also uniquely supports the third dimension.
With in-depth market research and our diverse cultural and professional backgrounds, we engage our user-food players in our self-developed methodology and journey that teaches them about the continued transformation of today's consumers from immediate physiological needs to their highest levels of self-fulfillment aspirations. Thus, we also elevate the understanding of global food players by changing their attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors towards consumers at this transformational time.
The world’s pandemic landed upon the lives of seven radically diverse individuals across Africa, Asia, Europe, N.A., and S.A (who didn’t know each other, but each of whom had served as selected Guides just weeks earlier for the Rockefeller Food System Vision Prize).
As doors and borders began to close and connectivity became limited, we each chose to join an online check-in. From backyards in Botswana to desks in Colombia, we shared openly about how our lives were changing and what we were feeling. While we were each being affected in different ways at home and in our own businesses, we found resilience within and were collectively inspired to share our knowledge and skills to help smaller food businesses, traditionally left behind. Food systems all over the world have their weaknesses, so we wondered how could we utilize this moment to become stronger and more resilient and elevate humanity? Answering that question has taken us on the unexpected journey of this project (as shared in the closing line of our video). We united around a shared vision to help food businesses move from an abrupt state of inaction towards a more resilient and sustainable state of productivity.
We are a global team of "shapers" from distinct parts of the world, who have each been committed to advancing our world's food system (click for bios) throughout our careers. We see that despite our differences, we are stronger uniting around a shared principle for a future that helps individuals become more aware and resilient and societies more sensible.
We are passionate about this project because we believe that it could help empower small and medium sized food businesses who are usually underserved, from producers and processors to retailers and caterers. We aim for each to become more resilient and thrive throughout the COVID-19 crisis and in upcoming challenges of today's uncharted world. Like us, we aim to motivate different food players to work together around health, local economy, buying practices and operating strategies to ensure a more sustainable future for all.
Our close work with food businesses and powerful visionaries pre and during COVID motivated us to go further and create a tool that could positively impact food players' systems and the system at large. Hands-on we provide shapers opportunities to develop initiatives and elevate society through a healthy, sustainable, collaborative and prosperous food future.
Our team contains professionals from five diverse cultural backgrounds and an eclectic set of experiences including: business and startups, human oriented designers, sustainability and circular economy consultants, executive coach, financial and marketing professionals (Linked-In bios below). Our distinct culture-know-how and personal and professional characteristics enable us to create a product that could be useful for people from different countries and backgrounds and prepare us to be culturally-sensitive trainers to global food shapers.
We also have two team members (Alana Libow and Juliana Gonzalez) who will pilot this opportunity in the coming weeks:
Alana, our food systems sustainable development expert and transformative change coach will lead a pro-bono five part e-training series for small-medium food businesses in Miami featuring the segments of our Guide:
The New Landscape - Context, Trends, & Insights (July 30th, 2020)
Your Purpose + Your Customer (August 6th, 2020)
Discover New Opportunities, Repurpose Capabilities (August 13th, 2020)
Partnering - Across sectors and within Miami’s Ecosystem (August 20th, 2020)
Operating in Our New World: Build a Resilient & Sustainable Business (August 27th, 2020)
Juliana, our food experience design consultant, will be testing out our materials with Colombian individual food shapers.
Please meet our full team here, in the prior bios, and in our video.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/alanalibow/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/juliana-gonz%C3%A1lez-218b756a/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/lhdemery/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/minhthunguyen/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/ekaterina-egorova-8368bb33/
Our project was birthed in setback - the world’s pandemic and our own compromised moments from family to business. While our collective strains united us and a better future for the world's food system and humanity inspired us to launch our idea, we were also unaware of how each of us preferred to communicate, work, and collaborate - critical elements to being a successful remote team, who had never met or worked together. Weeks into ideation and content contributions, we felt the team’s energy fray and commitment wane. “Lost in translation” moments caused frustrations and developing exercises that were manageable for small businesses of the world’s cultures became harder than anticipated.
We reached out to a community expert and collectively developed ways to integrate diverse individual and cultural ways of learning and working to regenerate our team enthusiasm. Over the weeks, it's been very inspiring to see great energy come from those who felt frustrated, ideas shoot out from those who had initially shared less, and exercises become more tangible for different cultures. Learning about our team not only has helped us become stronger but also become more prepared when working with food players of all cultures and personality types.
During the initial weeks of the pandemic, while food players from around the world began to pivot in response to the shocks, we came together and began to form our vision for our Resilient Future for Food Players’ Guide. IDEO launched a COVID-19 Business Pivot Challenge. We submitted our version 1.0 (see Food System_ Reinvention Toolkit.pdf and Copy of [INTERNAL] COVID Toolkit prototype .pdf or at the bottom of this link). The majority of the applications were from businesses around the world that had pivoted. We had submitted our resource tool on how small businesses, traditionally left behind, could reinvent.. We were thrilled to learn that IDEO selected us as one of three finalists to be showcased. IDEO highlighted that we were selected because of the extraordinary way in which we came together in the face of adversity -- without any official request or financial backing; how we leveraged our radical diversity as an advantage, and how we are uniting our food expertise across our shared vision to help food players create a resilient and sustainable future. We felt very proud to stand as a role model for each of our communities and for the global food community.
- Other, including part of a larger organization (please explain below)
We are a Collective. We are made up of 7 individuals from five continents. We each have our own original and separate professional paths (either organizations of which we are a part or our own consultancies). We believe today's world needs a Collective and nimble approach. We are committed to expanding from our own linear worlds to an expansive Collective/Collabortive Network approach. We are working on our Collective's business model (please see that section). We may explore whether a Collective can be established as a B-Corp.
Founder-CEO