• A global land rush—sparked primarily by a dramatic rise in global food prices and now driven by a variety of factors including increased demand for food and biofuels, carbon markets, and speculation—is remaking the face of agriculture and land use in the developing world. The underlying economic fundamentals indicate that this rush for land will continue for several decades.
• Price fluctuations are a common feature of well-functioning agricultural product markets. But when these become large and unexpected – volatile – they can have a negative impact on the food security of consumers, farmers and entire countries. Since 2007, world markets have seen a series of dramatic swings in commodity prices. Food prices reached their highest levels for 30 years during the summer of 2008, collapsing the following winter, before rapidly rising again in the months that followed. Food prices today remain high, and are expected to remain volatile.

 

Affected skills:
Technical skills (i.e. Food policy; Interpret data in food production and manufacturing; Perform strategic planning in the food industry; Set dynamic price models for land and agricultural products, market analyser, climate prediction and trends, precision farming)

General skills (Analyse market, science and technological trends; Advice policy makers; Advice business investors)

 

Soft skills (Perform public and network relations; Inform investors, knowledge based flexibility resilience)

 

Future jobs: Land Advocate; Ethical and Economic Advisor; Risk- Manager supported by Dynamic Machine-Learning, precision farming, food and agricultural planner)

• The cryptocurrency industry has wanted to achieve mainstream adoption in retail for ages. A number of merchants tried to accept Bitcoin payments in the past, but it was probably too early: paying with crypto had yet to take off, and many retailers stopped taking it. In many cases that’s probably been down to price volatility and slow processing times.
• At the very intersection of digitalization and globalization, the finance industry is constantly innovating; looking for ways to transcend borders and red tape as we speak to stay relevant. Consumers and businesses alike are searching for financing solutions outside of the remit of traditional banks and investors: with emphasis on processing speed, approval leniency and nuanced methods of gauging credit history. With alternative finance becoming less ‘alternate’ as the days progress, Popularity of alternative business finance continues to be influenced by bank loan approval rates for SMEs; businesses will continue prefer debt over equity also in alternative finance; future will see an increased multi partner approach to alternative finance, with significant emphasis on institutionalisation; perceptions of adequate and up-to-date regulation will be associated with higher volumes per capita and higher share of business funding.

 

Affected skills:
Technical skills (i.e. Financial analysis; Knowledge of alternative funding and lending schemes)

 

General skills (Analyse market, science and technological trends; Consult consumers; Perform economic evaluation)

 

Soft skills (Train staff and consumers; Finance-related marketing skills)

 

Future jobs: Personal funder; Micro-investor; Crowdfunding Platform Management; Crypto Transactions Manager; Traditional and alternative finance Combinator; Food Fintech Specialist.

• Two centuries ago Napoléon Bonaparte said, “China is a sleeping giant… when she wakes, she will move the world.”2 How right he was. Only 15 years ago, China’s economy was one tenth the size of the US economy. If it continues to grow as predicted, it will be bigger than the US economy by the late 2020s.
• As global economic power continues to shift to rapid-growth economies, new patterns of trade and investment will emerge prompting businesses and governments to rethink opportunities as well as risk.
• While economic power shifts have brought many gains, they have also been associated with patterns of economic loss, and used to bolster forms of protectionism and nationalism, with large potential consequences for business, individuals and communities

 

Affected skills:
Technical skills (i.e. International Marketing and Finance; Develop Food Policies and Food Strategies in a Multi-National and Trans-national Context)

 

General skills (Analyse market, science and technological trends; Foresight; Foreign Languages)

 

Soft skills (Multiculturalism; Risk Management; openness to international relations; Train staff and consumers)

 

Future jobs: Personal food planner; Food 3D printer; Bio-active compound expert; Pop-up food co-curator; Healthy sommelier; Personal food shop manager; Food grader.

• Digital business networks are allowing entrepreneurs to connect to thousands of like-minded people at the click of a button, while products, apps and special services are helping aspiring business owners realize their dreams quickly and easily. The era of “instant” entrepreneurship is here, in which anyone can become their own boss almost overnight.
• Startups will disrupt more and more also existing and consolidated business. McDonald’s is showing the way: they announced the acquisition of the personalization company Dynamic Yield. Dynamic Yield works with brands across e-commerce, travel, finance and media to create what’s been described as an Amazon-style personalized online experience. McDonald’s said it will use this technology to create a drive-thru menu that can be tailored to things like the weather, current restaurant traffic and trending menu items. Once you’ve started ordering, the display can also recommend additional items based on what you’ve already chosen.McDonald’s also plans to integrate this technology into other digital products, like self-serve kiosks and the McDonald’s mobile app.

 

Affected skills:
Technical skills (i.e. Customizing solutions for food; Food entrepreneurship)

 

General skills (Analyse market, science and technological trends; Consult consumers; Ensure cost-efficiency in food manufactoring)

 

Soft skills (Find new types of food and beverages; Perform public and network relations; Train staff and consumers)

 

Future jobs: Reverse incubation manager and facilitator; Food real and virtual incubator manager; Food Startupper; Gig Economy and Talent Scout.

• At the same time, the sharing economy has lost some of its original allure. In the early days, it was rare not to have a conversation about how the sharing economy could responsibly mitigate hyper-consumption and truly build community connections. These benefits have not disappeared, but it is increasingly difficult to find sharing economy platforms that practise these principles in reality. The focus has shifted towards convenience, price and transactional efficiency: “community” as commodity.
• In the race to grow, we cannot forget that building a thriving, sustainable sharing economy platform depends essentially on two elements: mindset shifts and trust. Mindsets take time; change doesn’t happen overnight. Platforms that strive to grow too fast (whether spending money too quickly, or assuming that demand will be exponential) or compromise customer trust (which is hard to build and extremely easy to lose) may find themselves facing difficult decisions in future.

 

Affected skills:
Technical skills (i.e. Think creatively about food and beverages; Use new technologies in food manufacturing; Communicate regarding food and services interdisciplinary issues)

 

General skills (Analyse market, science and technological trends; Consult consumers; Manage communication with food industry governmental bodies)

 

Soft skills (Trust building; Connecting resources; Supervise and motivate employees; Manage corrective actions; teamworking skills; persistence and perseverance)

 

Future jobs: Sharing economy designer; New type of job-matching platforms manager; Job advocate; Multi-service broker; Food Knowledge and Resources Aggregator.

 

• Tomorrow’s legislative and regulatory disruption will require both a broader perspective and a narrower focus.
• Corporate leaders have not always viewed disruption coming from the regulatory environment as a top business challenge. Today, executives and board members recognize disruption as both an opportunity for differentiation and an existential threat. Responding requires a view that is simultaneously wider (international, sovranational: i.e. OECD, EU) and more narrowly focused (regional and, even, city level).
• Regulatory framework will, more than in the past, shift market power among competitors, challenge existing business models and approaches, realign trade patterns, reorient supply chains, drive business relocations and more.
• Yet, even as disruption demands a broader perspective, it calls for a narrower focus. It necessitates prioritizing and emphasizing the most important challenges in an ever-expanding universe of potentially disruptive trends, but also it calls for action and pro-activity in engaging with/creating bottom-up food policy and dialogue platforms.

 

Affected skills:

Technical skills (i.e. Regulatory affairs; Food production; Food Policy Drafting; Applying requirements concerning manufacturing, handling, delivery and consumption of food and beverage; Analyse trends in the food and beverage and food-related industries)

 

General skills (Regulatory framework assessment; Impact assessment of regulations; Guerrilla Marketing; Institutional and Public Relations; Stakeholders Mapping and Engagement)

 

Soft skills (Perform public and network relations; Create consensus; Explain and compare different positions; Resilience)

 

Future jobs: Food policy expert; Food regulatory advisor; Food Scientist; Environmental and Health Inspector.

Predictions that seemed distant two years ago are entering the real world — from the live-testing of autonomous ridesharing in key cities, to the opening of the world’s first fully automated retail outlet, the Amazon Go store in Seattle.
Work is being reinvented, not just by technology, but also by demographic factors (e.g. millennial workers) and cultural drivers. The changing nature of work is upending social contracts, for example, by widening inequality and undermining aspects of social contracts tied to the employer-employee relationship. This will require new public policy solutions.
Preparing workers for the future of work will take a very different approach to education, emphasizing skills over knowledge and lifelong learning over front-loaded educational systems.
Perhaps the biggest shift over the last couple of years has been how companies are taking active measures to prepare for the future of work. This includes revamping their approaches to human resources/talent, employee motivation, recruiting, training and skills development.

• 1. Experiential learning. Many companies are already adopting the ways of popular content platforms like Netflix and Spotify. Just like shows or music, employees can access the “channel” or “playlist” of content that interests them most. The eLearning platform might even promote the most relevant content for each learner through job-skills matching, historical learning data or AI-based recommendations. Earlier this year, the LinkedIn Workplace Learning Report revealed that the top challenge facing learning and development is a lack of available time for learning. That’s right. Employees are under time pressure every day, and squeezing in training can be tricky. The other key finding from LinkedIn’s survey of 4,0000+ people was that employees want to learn at the point of need. No sooner, no later. The solution? Learning just-in-time (JIT) and on-the-job; a combination commonly achieved through experiential learning activities. This approach takes a practical spin on training, as employees engage in a continuous cycle of do, learn, reflect.
• 2. Learner-centered online training. Every minute, Facebook users share 2.5 million pieces of content, YouTube users upload 72 hours of new video content and Instagram users post nearly 220,000 new photos. That’s every 60 seconds. It’s no wonder that employees are looking for a more meaningful experience when it comes to learning. An experience that’s engaging, relevant, convenient, and even a little fun. Adaptive learning techniques will become the standard to create a learner-centric design by using technology and eLearning. This involves targeting each person’s specific needs, providing content that’s engaging and relevant, adapting the pace of learning, and offering personalized feedback. It’s not difficult to see why adaptive learning is more effective than one-size-fits-all corporate training.
• 3. Widespread prioritization of training. In the past, training had one very specific goal: to develop the core competencies that employees need to do their jobs. Any additional learning opportunities were reserved for executive training. But today, every company must invest in learning for all staff if they want to attract top talent, retain it, and continuously harness the hard and soft skills that will keep them at the forefront of innovation.
• 4. Security awareness in eLearning. Any and all employees with access to the backend of the learning management system (LMS) should understand the importance of keeping their login details secure.
• 5. Training reinforcement. Training is only effective in achieving business outcomes when new knowledge and skills transition from the learning platform to the workplace. In the year to come, training managers will look to theories of spaced repetition, the forgetting curve and design thinking to create courses that lead to better learning retention. They’ll also leverage the features of a powerful LMS, like gamification and chatbots, to engage learners in a deeper understanding and application of knowledge and skills.

 

Affected skills:

Technical skills (Regulatory affairs; Food production; Applying requirements concerning manufacturing, handling, delivery and consumption of food and beverage; Analyse trends in the food and beverage and food-related industries)

 

General skills (Training design; Competencies forecasting; Training methodologies and techniques)

 

Soft skills (Communication; Engagement; Distributed and Open Knowledge Solutions)

 

Future jobs: Food policy expert; Food regulatory advisor; Food Trainer; HR Inspector and specialists.

Imagine a future in which consumer safety is protected not by monitoring regulatory compliance and penalizing infractions, but by using big data and algorithms to prevent breaches before they can even occur. Imagine regulations that rewrite themselves to keep up with ever-changing market conditions. Imagine regulation conducted jointly by industry and regulators — a collaborative, rather than contentious, exercise. This is where things are headed.

• Regulation is a vital part of social contracts. Regulation serves a vital purpose, making it a key part of any social contract. It ostensibly seeks to protect the interests of less powerful constituents (e.g. consumers, workers and small businesses) from the excesses of more powerful institutions.
• Disruptive innovation challenges regulatory frameworks. It forces regulators to reconsider and recalibrate the delicate balance that regulations strike between the competing interests of different constituents. And it creates entirely new entities and business models that existing regulations — often written decades earlier — could never have foreseen.
• Sharing economy platforms are already challenging regulators. So far, these tensions have been most visible in the sharing economy, where regulators are confronting unprecedented questions. Are drivers on a ridesharing platform contractors or employees? Are they subject to the scores of rights and protections — from minimum wages to retirement savings — that have traditionally been built around the employer-employee relationship? What responsibility do platform companies have for ensuring tax compliance? Since sharing platforms provide services with a strong local component, these issues are being addressed primarily by city and state regulators. But authorities are also starting to address these issues at a broader level.
• Human augmentation will bring these strains to a breaking point. Next, human augmentation technologies will raise bigger and more fundamental regulatory issues, bringing them to the national and international stage, and requiring skills beyond regulators’ traditional competencies. Autonomous vehicles will require new rules and infrastructure, from air lanes for drones to sensor-embedded highways for driverless trucks. Artificial intelligence will raise a panoply of regulatory challenges, from ethical issues to the certification of transparency and lack of bias in algorithms. Ubiquitous sensors and digital assistants will make privacy and data security concerns even more pressing.

 

Affected skills:

Technical skills (i.e. Small and big data analysis; Food policies and regulation)

 

General skills (Analyse market, science and technological trends; Consult consumers; Risk foresight and management)

 

Soft skills (Perform public and network relations; Train staff and consumers)

 

Future jobs: Augmented food lobbyist; Food policy arranger.

Even the innovation policy will be affected by the mega changes that will transform the social contract. The social contract (also known as a social compact) is the collection of implicit or explicit agreements that enable citizens to live together in civil society. It encompasses everything from the rule of law to regulation to a society’s approach to innovation. These contracts are neither uniform nor static — they vary across societies and over time. All social contracts attempt to provide stability by seeking to balance the needs of citizens and governments, workers and employers, the individual and the collective. Yet, disruption has been straining long-standing social contracts. The next waves of technology, globalization and demographics promise to take them past the breaking point. New economic realities will demand new solutions and traditional approaches may no longer be viable.
Regardless of how they arise and what mix of solutions they enact, the social contracts of the future will follow four principles:
Inclusive. Future social contracts will be more inclusive. For corporations, this means that companies will be accountable not just to shareholders, but to a broader set of stakeholders. Digital disruption has already made information transparent and empowered individuals, trends that will continue with the rise of blockchain and adaptive regulation.
Long-term. Tomorrow’s social contracts will be more aligned around long-term interests and behavior. Incentives, including those based on behavioral economics, will help change this to tackle major collective action challenges.
Market-based. For social contract reforms to be sustainable, it’s critical that they be rooted in the private sector. Social contracts will realign interests so that companies act more inclusively and with a long-term focus, not because of corporate social responsibility initiatives or for public relations benefits, but because doing so is good for the bottom line.
Policy-driven. Governments will play a key role in realigning the interests of private sector actors with the long-term inclusive needs of society. Specifically, new policy measures will bridge gaps and address market failures. Many of these policies will incorporate behavioral economics.
Affected skills:

Technical skills (i.e. Small and big data analysis; Food policies and regulation)

 

General skills (Analyse market, science and technological trends; Consult consumers; Risk foresight and management)

 

Soft skills (Perform public and network relations; Train staff and consumers)

 

Future jobs: Augmented food lobbyist; Food policy arranger.

• These effects are already visible in the media industry but will affect also the way regulation is communicated and distributed. “Snakeable Content” will be applied also to regulation as a standard, going towards simplification and “nudging” (as the Nobel Prize Thaler effectively focused)
• With each of the too-many produce recalls and outbreaks of 2018 – including the largest E. coli outbreak in more than a decade – the public has lost confidence in produce, making it a challenge for the produce industry to change perceptions. An expected trend for 2019 is the focus and development of produce safety programs to strengthen businesses through training that ensures latest best practices are understood and applied. There also will be continued focus on development and optimization of effective food safety interventions and technologies in the fields, during processing, transport, handling, and storage of produce.
• Food safety testing is expected to see continued growth as regulations evolve. Import and export testing, residue limits and labeling restrictions all force food laboratories to come up with new and improved testing methods to keep up with ever-changing laws. But they need also to make evident “at glance”, both to the regulatory bodies and to consumers, the positive results of food safety testing and the compliance with regulatory standards.
• Food supplements are potentiating and changing the way we consume food. Many countries in Europe and Asia as well as Australia are now opening up for medical use of cannabis. This global business will explode in 2019. Companies who are getting into these markets early are positioned to expand rapidly. Edibles will be a huge part of this trend and the safety of these products will be under scrutiny, especially if there are food safety or dosage issues with these products. Predictions are that this will be a very contentious issue for politicians and the public, as concerns about children having access to THC-infused candies, chocolate, and beverages are heightened. Labeling and child-proof packaging requirements will be rigorous. As such, we sincerely expect and hope for there to be continued growth in the literacy and understanding of food safety in the marijuana edibles markets.

 

Affected skills:

Technical skills (i.e. Food science; Applied GMP; Applied HACCP; Customizing nutrients; Food regulation, agricultural expert, toxicologist)

 

General skills (Analyse market, science and technological trends; Public and Institutional Communication and Marketing, Food Law, Nutrition)

 

Soft skills (Find new types of food and beverages; Perform public and network relations; Train staff and consumers, food science communication, information mediator)

 

Future jobs: Personal food planner; Food 3D printer; Bio-active compound expert; Pop-up food co-curator; Healthy sommelier; Personal food shop manager; Food grader.

 

• The negative impacts on employment can include: 1. Job losses; 2. Impacts on business assets and business interruptions due to weather damage or disruption of private and public infrastructure, such as buildings, machinery, production sites, raw materials and supply chains. 3. Impacts on working conditions and occupational safety and health affecting labour productivity; 3. Forced short-term and long-term migration due to income reduction, job losses and uninhabitable environment as a result of environmental risks and abrupt extreme weather events.
• Jobs will be created in new emerging green sectors, such as renewable energies where the demand for goods and services is expanding;
• Certain jobs will be eliminated without direct replacement, for example, through banning or discouraging the use of a particular processing methods or resources especially in energy-intensive and polluting industries;
• Certain jobs will be substituted as a consequence of industrial transformation. For example jobs in waste incineration plants will be substituted with jobs in recycling facilities;
• The majority of existing jobs will be transformed and redefined in terms of their profile requirements and working methods i.e. plumbers and architects in the adoption of more environmentally friendly practices such as efficiency improvements.

 

Affected skills:

Technical skills (i.e. Sustainable food production; Green Food technologies for sustainable processing; Biodiversity Preservation; Food footprint Assessment and Communication; Resource-optimisation in food processing)

 

General skills (Waste prevention mindset; Perform eco-sustainability assessment)

 

Soft skills (Negotiation skills; Communication skills; Perform public and network relations; Train staff and consumers)

 

Future jobs: Blue and green efficiency expert; Food waste prevention manager; Carbon Footprint grader and planner.

 

• Food production and consumption both shapes and is shaped by the nature of the landscape and people’s relationship with it. Wylie (2007) identifies how a focus on food provides an understanding of the forces that produce landscapes, such as systems of labour, transnational commodity chains, buyers and sellers, transportation, storage providers, advertisers, supermarket layout designers. He suggests that food as well as landscapes becomes ‘imprinted within shared and collective circuits of cultural meaning’ so analysing both can reveal much about how we live, about the relationships that create both food and landscapes, particularly about their symbolic and cultural significance. A number of the cultural landscapes recognised under the UNESCO World Heritage List are example of such interactions, for example, the Alto Douro Wine Region in Portugal, the Honghe Hani Rice Terraces in China, the Fray Bentos Industrial meat processing Landscape in Uruguay and the Wachau Vineyard Landscape in Austria.
• The growing promotion of regional landscape and food identities for commerce and tourism will be more and more aided by the interest of celebrity chefs. This provides new potentials for those ‘selling’ and ‘creating’ landscapes and has important implications for human health and economics as well as animal health and well-being.
• There will also be a rise in interest in cultivars and foraging, partly as a result of the interest of the culinary industry. While foraging has mostly been concentrated in rural landscapes in areas where traditional knowledge and practices still exist, there is an increasing interest, evidenced in the digital and grey literature in particular, in the potential of foraging in urban areas. This has important implications for landscape and biodiversity as well as people’s food habits and possibly for nutrition in relation to food poverty.

 

Affected skills:

Technical skills (Food production in relation to landscapes; Food landscape expert; Food tourism package design and management)

 

General skills (Analyse market, science and technological trends; Advice Policy Makers, empathy for culture, quality and societal issues)

 

Soft skills (Landscape as Heritage Awareness; Eco-perceptiveness; Perform public and network relations; Train staff and consumers; Presentation skills; selling skills)

 

Future jobs: Food landscape promoter; Urban Farmer; Hyper Local Restaurant Manager and Planner; Single Origin Certifier.

 

• An extensive use of plastics has caused a global and long term trend for this category. Shellfish waste, eggshells, and orange peels. Sounds like a recipe for somebody’s food waste bin. However, these are just a few out of many unconventional materials being put to use to make bio-plastics. Currently, bio-plastics account for around 1% of the total volume of 335 million tonnes of plastics in circulation. They are mostly made from first-generation feedstocks, such as corn or sugarcane. According to trade body European Bioplastics, first-generation feedstocks are the most efficient feedstock for the production of bio-plastics as it requires the least amount of land to grow on and produces the highest yields. However, at the same time, the bio-plastics industry is looking into the use of non-food crops (2nd and 3rd-generation feedstock), such as cellulose, with a view to develop new materials.
• New economy materials can consist of either drop-in bio-plastics that have chemically identical structures to conventional plastics like PET or PE, as well as new formulations like polylactic acid (PLA) or polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHA) that have chemical structures unrelated to conventional plastics. These materials can be recycled just like their fossil fuel counterparts.
• Impacts on food safety certification and food packaging will be on the rise

 

Affected skills:

Technical skills (i.e. Food science; Food Safety certification; Applied GMP; Applied HACCP; Customizing packaging solutions; Toxicology)

 

General skills (Analyse market, science and technological trends; Consult consumers; Perform sensory evaluation)

 

Soft skills (Find new types of solutions; Perform public and network relations; Train staff and consumers)

 

Future jobs: Innovative Bio-Packaging Designer; Plastic-Free Meat Certifier; Food and One Health Expert; Food waste and new raw materials producer.

 

• Among insect type, crickets commanded the largest share in the global edible insects market. This growth is primarily attributed to its high nutritional value, easy farming, easy processing and incorporation into various food recipes & products, and increasing demand for cricket-based products, such as protein powder, protein bars, and snacks among others. While among product type, whole insects commanded largest share in this market cited to its easy availability, their less cost as compared to processed insects, and unavailability of the processing techniques in some regions.
• When it comes to end users edible insects are primarily used for human consumption followed by animal nutrition, and cosmetics. The large share of this segment is mainly attributed to increasing demand for animal-based food to feed the exponentially growing global population, high nutritional value of insects for human consumption, and growing demand for environmental friendly protein alternative sources.

 

Affected skills:

Technical skills (i.e. Food science; Applied GMP; Applied HACCP; Customizing nutrients; Pairing foods and ingredients)

 

General skills (Analyse market, science and technological trends; Consult consumers; Perform sensory evaluation)

 

Soft skills (Find new types of food and beverages; Perform public and network relations; Train staff and consumers)

 

Future jobs: Personal food planner; Food 3D printer; Bio-active compound expert; Pop-up food co-curator; Healthy sommelier; Personal food shop manager; Food grader; Alternative proteins expert; Pro-proteiners and new veganism enlightened gurus.

 

• Agricultural water is water that is used to grow fresh produce and to sustain livestock. The use of agricultural water makes it possible to grow fruits and vegetables and raise livestock, which is a main part of our diet.
• Agriculture is by far the largest consumer of the Earth’s available freshwater: 70% of “blue water” withdrawals from watercourses and groundwater are for agricultural usage, three times more than 50 years ago. By 2050, the global water demand of agriculture is estimated to increase by a further 19% due to irrigation needs. Approximately 40% of the world’s food is currently cultivated in artificially irrigated areas. Worldwide, over 330 million hectares are equipped for irrigation. Irrigated agriculture represents 20 percent of the total cultivated land, but contributes 40 percent of the total food produced worldwide. Agriculture is also a major source of water pollution from nutrients, pesticides and other contaminants, which if unmanaged can lead to significant social, economic and environmental costs.
• As many as 1 out of 4 workers will be working in the renewable energy (RE) or energy efficiency (EE) industries by 2030.The 40 million jobs that could be created in renewable energy and energy efficiency by 2030 are not just engineering-related, but also include millions of new jobs in manufacturing, construction, accounting, and management.

 

Affected skills:

Technical skills (i.e. Efficient Food Production; Applied GMP; Applied green and blue engineering, applied technology in urban gardening)

 

General skills (Analyse market, science and technological trends; Environmental Impact Assessment)

 

Soft skills (Find new types of food and beverages; Identify alternative environmentally sustainable options; Perform public and network relations; Train staff and consumers)

 

Future jobs: Water footprint controller; Green and Blue EcoLabelling Expert; Critical Blue and Green Consumers’ Trainer; Environmental Engineers; Environmental Accountant

• Like the way chefs teamed up with scientists to concoct chemistry experiments masking as food in the realm of molecular gastronomy, will we soon see the findings of gastrophysicists help to alter the sensory experience of dining? Designers such as Marije Vogelzang and Katrina Steven have already explored the use of portion control to tackle the issue of overeating, but could gastrophysics offer a more invisible approach? Could audio brands jump on board to help retrain our taste buds, helping us to cut back on sugar-laden desserts? Will Spotify launch a selection of playlists: sweet or savoury? There is potential for product manufacturers here, too. Martin Kullik is the co-founder of Experimental Gastronomy, an initiative that fosters conscious sustainable eating through a series of multi-sensory events. One such happening included taste-altering cutlery by Renée Boute and Lisanne van Zanten. Dainty blue utensils increased the perception of saltiness in a meal, whereas longer, heavier white cutlery made a dish taste sweeter. ‘Imagine if you started applying that knowledge to places like elderly homes and crèches,’ says Kullik. While Experimental Gastronomy’s first experience was limited to the artistry of the food and cutlery. Later editions may incorporate everything from glassware and furniture to textiles and fragrance. If tomorrow’s restaurants follow suit and head in an all-encompassing direction, they will have to embrace the art of subtlety. ‘As important as sensory stimulation in eating is,’ says Berger, ‘overstimulation can ruin the entire experience.’
• Copenhagen – Ikea’s research and design laboratory, Space10, has unveiled a collection of sustainable, future-facing recipes. Dubbed a ‘cookbook with a mission’, Future Food Today focuses on the positive future of food by reinventing familiar dishes with alternative sources of protein, such as micro-algae and insects. The book will feature a variety of recipes from the Space10 kitchen, including the Dogless Hotdog, the Bug Burger and the Holy Mole Fish Taco. ‘Ultimately, we created Future Food Today to inspire ourselves and others to get curious in the kitchen, and to motivate us to take action through our food choices,’ explains editor Polina Bachlakova. ‘Future Food Today gives its readers the tools they need to experiment with sustainable, healthy and delicious recipes in their own kitchens.’

 

Affected skills:

Technical skills (i.e. Food science; Tech Food Science; Monitor Developments used for food industry; Make artistic food creation; Configure Plants for food industry; Watch Food Products trends)

 

General skills (Perform detailed processing operations; Find new type of food and beverages; Use new technologies)

 

Soft skills (Care for food aesthetic; Meeting management and coordination skills; Self-promotion skills; Negotiating skills; Influence/persuasion skills)

 

Future jobs: Sensory scientist; Pricing specialist; Artistic, cultural and culinary integrate professionals; Packing, bottling and labelling machine experts; Food experience designer.

• In the food industry, this is especially valuable as it makes it possible to track the source of various food items starting from the farm, for example, and ending at supermarket shelves. In the case of a suspected contamination or foodborne illness, finding the bad batch using blockchain is easy and quick. Walmart, which is known as the owner of one of the best food traceability systems in the industry, completed a test using traditional methods to trace the origin of mangoes. The test took them six days, 18 hours and 26 minutes to trace a package of mangoes to the exact farm of origin. By using blockchain, it took just only 2.2 seconds. This dynamic and safe solution supports a new era of end-to-end transparency in the global food system as all participants will be able to share information rapidly and with confidence across a strong trusted network. Blockchain offers a traceability advantage. When you look the value chains for food, there are already a lot of tracking and tracing systems out there, but blockchain can be used to improve or replace those systems, so it is very useful to verify data connected to nutrients, ingredients and the circumstances under which a product has been produced, such as sustainability, CSR or other issues. You can also add data on the impact a specific product would have on nature or ecosystems. So basically, it could provide certainty about the information surrounding certain products.
• A significant announcement in summer 2017 indicated that major food manufacturers are already embracing blockchain. Walmart, Nestlé and Unilever are among the companies that IBM has announced a partnership with that will see the consortium adopt a blockchain inspired solution to prevent food contamination. IBM said that many of the issues impacting food safety are magnified by lack of access to information and traceability. Foods that are contaminated or contain foodborne illnesses and waste result in fatalities each year. Nestlé, Unilever, Walmart, Tyson Foods, Dole, Driscoll’s, Golden State Foods, Kroger, McCormick and McLane Company will work with IBM to identify new areas where the global supply chain can benefit from blockchain.
• To address the fragmentation of most seafood supply chains Fishcoin has been designed as a peer-to-peer network that allows independent industry stakeholders to harness the power of blockchain using a shared protocol so that data can be trusted, transparent, and secure (https://fishcoin.co/)
• In another example of the application of blockchain, Belfast-headquartered Advanced Research Cryptography Ltd. (arc-net) has created what it describes as a “world first” through a unique partnership with Scotland-based Adelphi’s Ardnamurchan Distillery. The link-up could revolutionize Scotch whisky exports and safeguard the industry against counterfeits and fraud with the use of arc-net’s Blockchain platform. Each bottle of Dunfermline-based Adelphi’s latest Ardnamurchan Distillery limited spirit release has been uniquely marked and authenticated by arc-net, allowing full traceability of each bottle from the distillery through the supplier network to the ultimate consumer.

 

Affected skills:

Technical skills (i.e. Software development; Food production; Food distribution; Blockchain Developer; Development of interactive front-end designs for Dapps; Backend development pertaining to Blockchain; Supervision of the entire stack running their Dapps)

 

General skills (Perform detailed processing operations; Coding; Development of Smart Contracts)

 

Soft skills (Flexibility; Stay relevant; Intuition of decentralization potential)

 

Future jobs: Core Blockchain developer; Blockchain software developer.

• With the assistance of data and technology, food and beverage companies are looking at capitalizing on consumer food trends as a way to boost sales and gain market share. Nearly every food company has been turning to personalization as a way to increase market opportunities. In the food and beverage space, there are particularly exciting growth opportunities for brands willing to involve consumers in the design and functionality of their products. Part of what drives the growing market for product personalization is the continued rise of the educated consumer. Technological access to near-infinite information and buying choices empowers even the average consumer to enjoy a position of power. Just-food predicts personalization as one of the consumer food trends will continue to grow through 2018, disrupting the status quo of packaged foods companies across manufacturing, marketing, and throughout the supply chain. For several years, brands with annual sales of less than $1 billion have been outpacing many larger ones in several packaged goods categories such as dairy, snacks, and ready meals. Due in part to the modern consumer’s desire for healthier ingredients and greater authenticity, this shift has required larger brands to rethink their marketing strategies.
• For some large brands, such as Coca-Cola, one successful strategy has been to enter the smaller brand market by acquisition—e.g. Honest Tea and Odwalla. But as companies deepen their understanding of the current cultural demand for earnest, authentic, health-centered brands, consumer goods companies are also responding to a broad cultural demand for personalization. Personalization offers novelty and appeals to the consumer’s desire for input and control. Thus, customized and personalized consumer goods have been steadily gaining more shares in the current product market and present an interesting opportunity for large brands to compete with their smaller counterparts.

As consumers—especially millennial urbanites—place an increasingly higher premium on time savings, value, and health, the meal delivery boom makes sense. Meal kits not only provide convenience by saving lengthy trips to the grocery store and reducing food waste, but their pre-measured format also offers the consumer a measure of built-in portion control. And according to Nielsen’s Global Health and Ingredient Sentiment Survey, 70% of global respondents said they make dietary decisions based on personal health concerns (e.g. obesity, diabetes and high cholesterol), and “while total fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) sales volume has been flat over the past four years, sales of products with health and wellness claims are outpacing total category growth by a significant margin in many categories.” In addition, according to FoodLogiQ, due to this next generation of consumers’ increased awareness of recalls, allergens, chemically-processed foods, and unfair labor practices, there is a movement toward authenticity in all things related to the food and beverage arena. These consumer food trends, specifically meal kit delivery, is a huge opportunity area for traditional food and beverage manufacturers. Food and beverage companies can partner with retailers and online meal kit companies to deliver a variety of value-added contributions to this trend. Providing recipes, adjusting packaging configurations to enable single-meal use, and launching new products designed to comply with meal kit objectives can all help food and beverage manufacturers capitalize on this growth opportunity. Companies must continue to bear in mind the risks of personalization and mass-customization, including consumer alienation and brand dilution. But stakeholders should expect to see a lot of change during the next several years in the food and beverage industry as right-for-me marketing keeps everyone on their toes.

 

Affected skills:

Technical skills (i.e. Food vending and Food production; Food regulatory framework; Monitor Developments used for food industry; Make artistic food creation; Configure Plants for food industry; Watch Food Products trends; Maintain food specifications, Packaging Science, Consumer Science)

 

General skills (Perform detailed processing operations; Find new type of food and beverages; Use new technologies; Analyse Market Trends and Consumption Styles)

 

Soft skills (Communicate with customers; Negotiating skills; Influence/persuasion skills)

 

Future jobs: Sensory scientist; Pricing specialist; Artistic, cultural and culinary integrate professionals; Packing, bottling and labelling machine experts; Food experience designer, food marketing.

• Retailers are investing in physical stores as a way to surprise and delight customers. But brick and mortar requires much more than just a building with staff to compete against disruptive influences. By embracing social, viral and organic marketing, retailers are striving to create a personal experience that will lead to a sense of belonging for their customers. For example, three years after Starbucks debuted the Roastery on Capitol Hill as a playground for coffee aficionados, the company took the wraps off a Shanghai version twice as large to introduce its most exclusive and expensive beans to its fastest-growing market. Photos of the new Starbucks Reserve Roastery show a glitzy wonderland of marketing theater, its center stage dominated by a massive, two-story copper cask emblazoned with Chinese chops. Starbucks said the ceiling of the 30,000-square-foot retail showpiece is covered by 10,000 hexagonal wooden tiles, all handmade. Not everything is low-tech, however. The company said that working with Alibaba Group, China’s big online retailer, it has developed an augmented-reality app that lets visitors learn more about the process of roasting and preparing coffee, and rewards them for exploring the Roastery.
• Working with Alibaba Group, Starbucks developed an augmented reality app that lets visitors learn more about the process of roasting and preparing coffee and rewards them for exploring the Roastery.
• More and more, consumers are shopping with their emotions instead of their wallets. Indeed, millennials’ changing preferences and attitudes regarding corporate responsibility, social consciousness, and more have already impacted how retail brands present and position themselves. The trend has resulted in brands having to equate their internal culture with their exterior identity, turning companies into what some have dubbed “culture coders”. Companies are increasingly engaging consumers outside of traditional shopping parameters and becoming cultural figures. This trend cuts both ways, however, as this new measuring stick can also result in unintended consequences.
• The old model of in-store (and even online) retail strictly focused on products being sold. However, consumers have slowly but surely been moving away from strictly shopping for products, instead seeking a more engaging experience. The trend has been driven largely by millennials and their preference for experiences over things. Even so, simply remodeling a store isn’t enough. Nearly 3,800 stores are expected to close their doors by year’s end, and the brands that do survive will have done so by creating engrossing experiences. Stores like Sephora, for example, have rethought their stores by combining traditional elements with mobile apps and activities that are completely unrelated to making a purchase. Samsung unveiled a $43 million “pop-up” that features its products, but doesn’t have any for sale. The emergence of virtual reality, augmented reality, and improved mobile technology will continue to push retail brands to add layers and new experiences to their traditional retail models.

Similarly, co-working spaces and business accelerators are focusing on foods and are transforming the usual way to accede services and knowledge to feed change in the food industry. They all are designed as “emotional spaces” to embrace creativity and are more and more similar to “small self-sustaining creative cities”

 

Affected skills:

Technical skills (i.e. Perform sensory and quality evaluation; Manage time in food processing and delivery; Ensure correct food and experience labelling, food psychology)

 

General skills (Prepare visual data; Organize in-shop experiences; Work in food processing team; Store raw materials and goods, market analysis)

 

Soft skills (Work independently; Liase with collegues)

 

Future jobs: Sensory scientist; Pricing specialist; Artistic, cultural and culinary integrate professionals; Food grader; Food experience designer; Food service designer.

• In future, we’re going to see the development of alternative geo-referencing systems such as what3words or Locpin. These divide the entire world into a closely meshed grid of coordinates. Each square is assigned a globally unique marking. Over the next three years, this method of address will become increasingly commonplace, adding a new dimension to the customer experience. What3words, for example, uses a combination of three words to designate granular locations, and Locpin a code that can be supplemented with additional information for suppliers, such as details of the correct floor or a contact number. This allows safe access to destinations that are not covered by the classic address system of street, postal code, city, and country, and allows for more accurate targeting at major events like music festivals or in the event of a catastrophe. However, the basic prerequisite for this is that the software is adopted throughout the entire supply chain in order to process the new data. As such, ERP and OMS systems must be able to accommodate the new solutions, as well as Warehouse and Transport Management Systems (WMS/TMS) and the entire complex of the accounting software. In order for a shipment addressed with the new geo-referencing systems to easily pass through the supply chain, the conversion of all software systems in use must take place simultaneously. This is a major challenge for both software vendors and IT teams within the company. It can only be mastered with good planning and sufficient lead time.
• Today, some companies are using their supply chain as a tool against competitors: Amazon has achieved an outstanding market position, not least thanks to its revolutionary, fast delivery concept. In the US, Walmart enforces just-in-time delivery with strict contractual penalties: Anyone who delivers to the stores too late or too early will be charged three percent of the value of the goods when the invoice is issued. That means that smaller suppliers in particular are having difficulty keeping up with the competition, as it’s hard to optimize your supply chain without the global heft of an Amazon or Walmart. To combat this, cooperative models like the global trade network system are an effective and useful way to keep up, placing smaller companies in a network of partnerships that can help them flexibly and quickly resource orders across the world on demand. These models allow rapid expansion of a company’s own supply chain by including new suppliers as well as monitoring and controlling goods movements according to the control tower principle.
• The door-to-door supply chain has the potential to experience a bigger jump beyond the intermodality approach, thanks to new innovations in ICT and data-systems integration. With the help of digitalization in this area, real “synergy” could be set up between the actors involved in the supply chain and logistics. As a result, Synchromodality concept has been created beyond other concepts of Uni-modality, Multi-modality, and Inter-modality, in order to have an optimal use of transport available capacity.

 

Affected skills:

Technical skills (i.e. Food logistics; Smart Mobility for Food; Data management; Drones-supported mobility)

 

General skills (Perform detailed handling operations; Use new technologies)

 

Soft skills (Planning and forecasting; Meeting management and coordination skills; Self-promotion skills; Negotiating skills; Influence/persuasion skills)

 

Future jobs: Drone driver; Syncromodality Master; logistic handler