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🌞 Good reads for the summer

Published on July 26, 2023

Before taking a break for the summer, I wanted to leave you with some recommendations to take to the beach. While some are quite old (a least for tech, meaning up to 4 years old), they are still my go-to resources.

1 – Technically Food, by Larissa Zimberoff

Published 2 years ago, this book is still my number one recommendation for someone interested in exploring “the future of food” and, notably, alternative proteins.

The author, a food and a tech journalist, explores some of the hottest topics while keeping a critical eye. It is not black and white compared to other books on the subject.

The only limitation is that the book is a bit short in terms of vision (where are we going next?).

2 – FoodTech unicorns in 2023

With this report we released last month, you can have an overview of the 62 active FoodTech unicorns. It’s a very good proxy to the whole FoodTech ecosystem, and by looking at these companies and what they are doing, you can have a view of key trends shaping the future of food.

3 – The carbon Footprint of everything, by Mike Berners-Lee

An easy-to-read while scientifically sound book on the carbon footprint of the different products, services or things that make up our daily lives. The idea is that to reach our sustainability goals; we should be responsible individually for less a 5 tonnes of emissions .
You can learn about:

  • The huge differences between a cup of black coffee and a latte (x11)
  • The not-so-big difference between vegan and meat diets depends on the amount of waste generated or airfreighted produce you consume.
  • A pepperoni & cheese pizza is about 2.2kg, so you can eat one each day of the year and still have 4 tonnes in your “budget” (yes, I made the math, and it made me somehow confident that life was still very possible)

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What we did:

  • Mapping of the AgTech ecosystem: startups, research regulators, and other leading companies.
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  • Mapping the different categories of innovations in AgTech that should be considered now to create long-term benefits for the business.
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What we did:

  • Education of the board through a couple of workshops to define the perimeter
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Results:

  • Creating a consensus on which categories to prioritise and how to address them.
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  • A clear, regular and evolutive tool to follow what is happening in terms of innovation on key topics.
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What we did:

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  • Mapping of the different trends shaping the innovation ecosystem of the client.
  • Analysis of the trends on DigitalFoodLab’s trend curve and other relevant frameworks.
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  • Shared view of the innovation ecosystem for the client with a view of the trends to prioritize.
  • Clear document (personalised trend curve) that can be easily shared internaly to explain the company’s innovation choices and which can be then updated each year.
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Use case: scouting for an agriculture coop

What we did:

  • Kick-off to define the perimeter of the client, the goals of the scouting (partnerships) and the criteria on which startups should be evaluated.
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Results:

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