Everyone seems to be obsessed with what the food of the future will be, but only a few companies design today’s food-systems responsibly.

Consumers and their diets play an important role in reducing the impact of mankind on the planet, but in a complex world such as ours today, there seems to be still a lack of adequate tools to reconnect food with nature.

The planning of the food experience, of food material qualities and of the tools dedicated to it, has significantly evolved during the last century and has had remarkable impacts – both practical and emotional – on the way we source food and on our behaviour towards food to a point where some new interactions are having a strong effect on individual and collective identities.

It seems that the time has come to re-think food according to a new approach. Today more than ever, it is necessary to study and work on interactions, actions, services and systems that can make a difference.

From this perspective, I think food design can provide the methodological approach useful to change behavioral patterns and to introduce new mindsets in the agri-food sector.

In particular, I think it could be useful to keep in mind five guidelines – all related to the concept of time – that will inform and shape the food design in the new decade of change:

Food design must always start from the present time: Today more than ever, the transition to change does not mean a return to the past, but rather the ability to study the current to design and connect already available and constructive food-systems and behaviors , in order to create alternative and innovative food-systems.
The value differentiating some digital platforms, created during the pandemic to share surplus food, for example, is unparalleled in the fight against food waste. The same could be observed with regard to networks dedicated to the education of some communities at high risk of malnutrition. I believe that it’s very interesting to study the successful experiments in co-eating, social eating and guerrilla restaurants, to understand what their developments could be, and to identify potential food design scenarios for tomorrow’s hospitality and tourism.

Food design can add more value to our time: what value-lever will be put in place by men to confer meaning to their eating habits?
 Our era, therefore, represents the best moment to re-design, in positive terms, the cultural value of the relationship between man and food, but also between food and nature. The social relevance and urgency of a wide reconsideration- process regarding such relationship make it not postponable, necessary to respond, at the root, to people’s needs and capabilities. The awareness of having a food culture in which man is able to identify and recognize “his culture for taste and for life enjoyment” is the most effective tool to redefine the value of food in concrete terms.

For Food Design, time must be more tangible: universal sustainability is impossible. But it is possible to activate sustainability networks. The 2030 Agenda, with its seventeen goals, as well as other national standards and transnational policies, can direct us towards this goal. Unfortunately, in the food world, the separation between science, politics and food ecosystem is very obvious. All too often, the cause is found in miscommunication and in the inability to interpret the languages of the various sectors involved.
For example, the policy-maker has difficulty understanding a scientific report because it is too technical. Or the scientist does not have the means and channels to be able to circulate their data to the public. I believe design is the right tool to create new forms of interaction and sharing between science, politics and the agri-food business, so that new opportunities can be created and food-systems redefined.

For Food Design, time must be continuously measurable: food tastes and behaviors respond to a complex system of situational factors as well as choices that individuals make, often grounded in neither tangible nor easily predictable reasons. The experiential dimension and the support that design can provide to this research play a crucial role. It is necessary to bet on increasingly “agency-centered” food-systems – capable to enable an individual (and corporate) transformative, concrete and measurable change towards sustainability.

For Food Design, time will always be collective: design teaches to think. The transition to sustainability is a social learning process. No one can really do it individually. Food has always played the role of a catalyst for energies and tensions within a community. Food is nourishment and sustenance, but it is also an enjoyable experience that defines individual and social well-being. It is necessary to use different types of creativity to move away from the current state of uncertainty and to develop more positive “combined” and trans disciplinary strategies.

If we want to prepare the ground for a generation of “sustainable natives,” as I call them, we need to create adequate products and tools for them. We must foster systems in which diverse forces and skills (from producers to policy makers, from designers to educators, from managers to scientists, etc.) can actively collaborate. We need to make the next generation feel less like the victim and the cause of a problem, and more like an integral part of a system that can still improve. Being a food designer means having not only moral responsibilities, but above all making a concrete commitment to sustainability through food.