Insights from The Economist Future of Food Summit

In our latest Blog, Head of Supply Chain Development, Allene Bruce, shares her takeaways from The Economist’s Future of Food Summit in London where she was one of the speakers.

"The world today produces more than enough calories to feed everyone, yet in 2024, 673 million people experienced hunger and 2.6 billion could not afford a healthy diet, according to the UN FAO. Production is not the issue. The main problem is distribution (or more accurately, the lack of it). Nutritious food remains too costly or inaccessible for many of the world’s most vulnerable communities. This imbalance is expected to intensify as the global population heads toward 10 billion by 2050, meaning that 50% more food is required than in 2012, this is further exacerbated by climate change impacts reducing the area of land available with enough water for crops to be grown there.

These challenges set the tone at Economist Impact’s Future of Food Summit, held in London in February. The event convened more than 600 leaders across farming, agritech, manufacturing, retail, policy, finance, and development, to explore how to build food systems that support human health, economic viability, and planetary sustainability.

Speakers were unexpectedly candid about the gaping voids in the complex, interdependent nature of global food systems and the importance of placing the farmer at the centre of decision making.

For me, three themes stood out across the day’s discussions:

• First, the risk and responsibility for transforming the food system cannot rest solely with the farmer; without access to the right finance, policies, or market incentives farmers are too constrained to make significant change. Part of the sharing of risk involves the need for information on retailers’ strategic priorities on sustainability to flow more freely down the supply chain – otherwise farmers are expected to use guesswork to make decisions about investment in new technologies and practices.

• Second, there is (thankfully) a growing awareness among decision makers and buyers that no ‘one-size-fits-all’ solution would work with the diversity of global agriculture and the complexity of supply chains. Instead, what’s required is careful tailoring to meet the needs in each case – making for many different answers to solve a huge range of problems, rather than one ‘silver bullet’. Access to solid, reliable data is vital as the starting point for designing solutions that can be precise and effective, but also adaptive.

• And third, technology will also be key, Whether it’s methane-reducing cattle feed additives, or vaccines targeting gut microbes, scaling up adoption of these advances requires training, tailored financing, and long-term buyer commitments. The risk and investment in these should be shared fairly across the supply chain.

Ultimately, closing the global nutrition gap requires a collective willingness to confront the structural barriers that hold the food system back. The conversations at the Summit made clear that progress depends on shared responsibility, transparent information flows, and solutions designed with both local nuance and long‑term resilience in mind.

When farmers are equipped with the correct data, the right incentives, and effective support from every link in the chain, the entire system becomes stronger - capable not only of supporting a growing population, but of doing so sustainably, fairly, and with the adaptability that a changing climate demands."

On this ‘Net Zero in the Food Sector’ Q&A session at the summit, Allene was joined on the panel by, left to right:

Charlie Hobhouse CEO of Klura; Peter Chandley, Head of Quality and Food Safety at Weetabix; (Allene) and Sasha Notley, Director of Sustainability at Fortnum & Mason.