FoodxClimate

Dear Boston community, next week on Thursday Jan 30 we are back at Remnant Brewing. Our last event sold out, and we hope you'll again show up in force. Also, here is your good deed for the day: Please share this with someone from the Boston area who does important work at the intersection of food and climate. https://lu.ma/ka443rcz

I have spent a lot of energy trying to understand: Why is food so underserved as a climate problem? What can we do about it? So I'm grateful to the The Good Food Institute for hosting me for what I hope is much more of a conversation where we collectively grapple than me giving a talk.

As we bid farewell to an incredible #2024, we at FoodxClimate want to take a moment to express our heartfelt #gratitude. This year has been a testament to the power of #collaboration and the shared passion for creating a #sustainablefuture as we build out our #LA, #NY and #Boston hubs. #2024 has been a year of growth and meaningful progress for the FoodxClimate movement. As we step into #2025, we are more determined than ever to amplify our efforts, and take the FoodxClimate movement to new heights. Here’s to another year of #IMPACT and working together for a greener, healthier planet. #Bringon2025! 🌍💪 From our table to yours #happyholidays2024 #happyholidays Henrik Bennetsen Chiara Cecchini Sezin Yigit, PhD Audrey Spence Rachel Atcheson #FoodxClimate #Sustainability #Collaboration #ClimateAction #futurefoodsystems #ClimateChange #Goodbye2024Hello2025

Feeling very grateful for Beyond Meat's partnership in making our LA chapter's latest event a great success with a room full of food and climate change makers who got to sample some exciting new products! Also behind-the-scenes preparations for our next LA chapter event in early 2025 are underway. Keep an eye on this space for details!

Our fabulous LA chapter is organizing a fun online event Tuesday, Dec 17 6:00 PM PST to close out a great year. Join #quizmaster Emma Marie Anderson and LA Ambassador Dr. Lara Ramdin 🇬🇧 for food and climate-themed holiday cheer. The event is open to all! Hosting an online event is a first for us and a great chance for our community members to get together, free from the geographical constraints of our in-person meetups. Registration link and details in Lara's post below!

This article underscores exactly why building FoodxClimate and fostering a community dedicated to the underserved nexus of food and climate is so crucial. The impacts of #climatechange are extending beyond rising sea levels and extreme weather, now striking directly at global #foodsecurity. As the planet warms, food spoilage is accelerating, creating fertile conditions for bacteria and fungi that compromise the safety of what we eat. The consequences are already dire: hundreds of millions of people worldwide are falling ill from foodborne illnesses linked to these shifts. Higher temperatures and increased humidity are transforming storage and transportation environments into breeding grounds for harmful pathogens. Fresh produce, dairy, and meat—essential staples—are particularly vulnerable. Moreover, #waterscarcity is exacerbating the crisis. In many regions, treated #wastewater is increasingly being used for irrigation, sometimes carrying harmful contaminants that further endanger food safety. The implications are broad and sobering. This confluence of #climatechange and #foodinsecurity highlights the urgency of addressing global warming’s cascading effects. Without swift action, the world could face not just environmental collapse, but a profound public health crisis. Henrik Bennetsen Dr. Lara Ramdin 🇬🇧 https://lnkd.in/ehpc26jD

NYT piece about how China is investing aggressively in meat alternatives, and we have started to see a reaction here in the States: "In late September, 11 Republican members of Congress wrote to the directors of national intelligence and the Department of Agriculture’s Office of Homeland Security to warn of the latest threat emerging in China. They said China seeks to become the world leader in production of meat alternatives — part of a “targeted attempt to dominate global food supply chains” that could pose an urgent threat to the food security of the United States and its allies." A core aspect of my work with FoodxClimate has been to understand why food is so underserved as a climate issue (https://lnkd.in/gC6EYeD4) and time and again I am reminded of how someone once told me that a startup should be a painkiller (must-have) and not a vitamin (nice-to-have). In our part of the world, food is something we throw away, so working to build a decarbonized climate change-resilient food system feels like a vitamin. The scary thought is that we need a painful demonstration of how volatile our food systems are for food to become a painkiller. This is why I was glad to read this piece: I'd much rather have a fear of Chinese dominance, as we already see in other climate technologies, such as electric vehicles, be what finally wakes us up to the fact that food is perhaps our most terrifying and underserved climate problem.

Darko Mandich from MeliBio (who makes yummy honey without bees) talks about how food is the one climate issue we make several choices about every day

Tonight, our San Francisco Bay area community will gather. Some quick numbers about the event: 150 amazing food climate change makers have signed up 40 more sadly had to be added to our waitlist 6 startups are demoing their products 10 startups from across the world are in town and will be joining The event page has all the details: https://lu.ma/n8i845ty

We are working to launch the FoodxClimate podcast. Here is a sneak preview of Daniel Skavén Ruben sharing how Gullspång Re:food's recent report shows how incredibly underserved food is a climate issue despite being a major cause of and potential victim of climate change. A key goal of the podcast is to highlight the personal stories of those working at the food-climate nexus. We want our audience to see themselves in the stories and understand that they, too, can make a difference. Do you know of any food climate change-makers you'd love us to feature on the podcast? Ps. Please disregard the beginner podcast host face scratching :)