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the innovationists

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Litfest’16Five jump! Future Food Innovation Provocations

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Five jump! provocations for the future of food innovation from Litfest 2016.

1.

Gut

Instincts

2.

Natural

Anarchy

3.

ConflictCooking

4.

Wild

Gambling

5.

Waste

Rebellion

1. Here is our Litfest Future Junkie Report from a weekend spent at Litfest 2016 – a revolutionary food festival. Our Litfestexperience has highlighted to us five future food provocations.

2. Litfest is the Kerrygold Ballymaloe Literary Festival of Food and Wine. The event is attended by farmers, chefs, foodies and producers from around the world. The weekend is filled with intriguing discussions, incredible knowledge, music and a cornucopia of food and wine.

3. jump!ers spent the weekend at Litfest in a series of eye opening short talks and presentations under the title “Our Food –What’s the Story?”. The tagline of the festival was “Local Hero, Global Hero”, emphasising the need for ground level activism to achieve global change. This message carried through the talks and presentations we heard throughout the weekend.

4. The themes we saw and heard via talks, demonstrations and food stalls inspired these five food innovation provocations:

We’ll introduce you to these themes and summarise with some innovation provocations!

Bon Appetito

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1.Gut Instincts

Speaker: Professor Ted Dinan, University College Cork

discussed the relationship between our gut and our

psychological well being.

Here’s our summary:

People are now talking about ‘Psychobiotics’, probiotics with a positive mental health boost. This

is about using bacteria to regulate our mental health.

Microbiota have a significant effect on mental and emotional health regulation. A lack of

tryptophan produced by gut bacteria can lead to depression. Tryptophan encourages the growth

of new neurons and has a huge effect on serotonin and melatonin. Probiotics like Biffidobacterium

and Lactobascilli have been seen in some studies to have a huge influence on the amount of

Tryptophan in the gut.

And how best to grow these probiotics? The prebiotic Inulin enhances the growth and activities of

symbiotic bacteria, while also slowing the growth of or activities of certain pathogenic bacteria. It

also has capacity to lower cortisol – the hormone associated with stress.

Breast milk, seaweeds and spirulina, Jerusalem artichokes, bananas, garlic, leeks, onions, and

asparagus are some of the foods in which you can find inulin. The best way to diversify our

microbiota to age healthily is by enjoying a broad diet. Also – in having less microbiota, more

calories are absorbed into the body, therefore potentially having benefits for managing rising

obesity levels.

Numerous stalls and food producers were promoting

probiotic products at Litfest.

We tried a mocktail from ‘My Goodness’ - an ethical,

health focused business that specialises in vegan, raw,

sugar free and fermented probiotic products.

Delicious!

The benefits of our physical gut health and microbiota, the

ecological community of good and bad bacteria that share our

body space, is predicted to become increasingly important over

the coming months. Our ‘gut health’ is said to have a huge part to

play in our emotional wellbeing as well as our ability to use our gut

instincts to make decisions.

This interest in gut health extends to soil and agriculture as well as

humans, with new research highlighting the need to maintain

natural bacteria and gut health of the fields and the environment.

Artificial eating and farming decreases both human and the

environments natural bacteria with a knock on effect for our primal

instincts and feelings.

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We felt the rising of a ‘food war’ while we were at Litfest. Food is expected to, and will become, a new front for activism and change.

Anarchy was in the air from daring business models to guerrilla gardening, with a thirst to take matters into your own hands. Current food and environmental systems feel harmful and unsustainable, as such people are devising creative and innovative ways to disrupt the system.

Ari spoke about the “Zingerman’s model’’ of working. This model begins with a commitment to Open Book Management and opportunities for employee ownership. Their long-term vision is a radically different growth model, a community of businesses: each unique, each contributing to the success of the others and each with managing partners who have an equity stake and run the day-to-day operations.

Guerrilla gardening – There’s a growing number of “rurbanites” people who have a passion for the countryside but no intention of leaving the city. Litfest encourages people to throw seedbombs into neglected parts of the city.

Making seedbombs:

Seed bombs consist of a variety of different seeds rolled within a ball of clay, preferably volcanic pyroclastic red clay. Into this medium various additives may be included, such as compost. These are placed around the seeds, at the centre of the ball, to provide microbial inoculants. Cotton-fibres or liquefied paper are sometimes mixed into the clay in order to strengthen it, and a liquefied paper mash can be coated on the outside to further protect the clay ball during sowing by throwing, or in particularly harsh habitats.

Speaker: A Lapsed Anarchist Ari Weinzweig CEO and co- founder of Zingerman's Deli

2.Natural Anarchy

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With the current state of global affairs, from immigration crisis to Brexit, the role of food in ‘war’ time was a prominent discussion topic. We heard from cooks, producers and activists who believe food can help bring people together.

Ventures like ‘Conflict Kitchen’ and ‘Souk El Tayeb’ invite people from conflicting countries or cultures to eat and converse together over food. They hope to instigate healthy conversation and debate, and give people a better understanding of the ‘other’.

Speaker: Author of Food in a

Warzone and founder of the

Souk El Tayeb farmer's market in

Beirut, Kamal Mouzawak,

shared his experiences with us.

Kamal created the first farmers’ market in Beirut, Souk el-Tayeb, which preserves food traditions and the culture of sustainable agriculture in Lebanon. In a country that has been divided along ethnic and religious lines for decades. According to Mouzawak, “in a country as divided as Lebanon, nothing can bring people together as much as the land and food.”

He runs initiatives like ‘Food & Feast’ - one-day regional festivals that promote coexistence, preserve Lebanese heritage, and enhance a better understanding of the “other” to promote reconciliation in Lebanon.

3. Conflict Cooking

Tawlet, a restaurant concept by Souk follows a similar ethos to the market.

It is an open kitchen, where every day of the week, a different cook from the family of the Souk, prepares a typical food from her region.

Each day there’s a different cook, a different producer, a different meal, and a different story.

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The backlash against artificial food production is in full swing. Farmers and producers alike are starting to feel the effects of mass production and over reliance on man made appliances and products.

With nature and the environment, unpredictability and imperfection is inevitable but there’s a growing need to embrace and celebrate this if we’re going to create a sustainable system.

This talk focused on the importance of the ‘hare’s corner’. This is an old relationship between nature and agriculture, where a farmer would leave an uncultivated corner of a field, as cover for the hare, while keeping nature in balance. This kept the microbiota in the soil healthy and thriving. As artificial fertilisers came into use, the hare’s corner began to disappear. As a result, there was a decline in soil life – sometimes the microbiology was found to be lower than 3% organic life, in turn meaning the nutritional quality of the crops grown there would be incredibly poor too.

Without the help of artificial fertilisers you run of risk of failure. This project aims to prove that nature doesn’t abide by ‘safe’ answers, it’s supposed to be wild and unpredictable and humans need to work with it, not against it.

Speakers: The Hare’s

Corner is a project

based outside Kinsale,

co. Cork.

Speaker: Danielle

Nierenberg is an

American activist,

author, journalist and

Founder of Food Tank.

Food Tank is focused on building a global community for safe, healthy, nourished eaters.

The talk focused on restoring interest and investment in indigenous crops that may offer a solution to food insecurity and the increasing loss of biodiversity. A lot of the investment for crops in the third world is for crops like wheat, rice and maize. However Food Tank wants people to take a chance on indigenous crops that currently have bad raps for being ‘poor’ mans food or ‘ugly’, in hopes of improving nutrition and health, local economies and creating resilience to climate change, revitalising agricultural biodiversity, and helping to preserve tradition and culture.

4. Wild Gambling

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There were a lot of big hard hitting facts thrown around at the event. 30% of all food grown is thrown away. There are 795 million people going hungry. If carbon emissions from wasted food were a country, it would be the third largest in the world. To combat this, there is a rising energy around the zero waste movement.

This is a fast rising theme we’re seeing around food and drink.

Speaker: Tackling Food Waste Eoin Mac Cuirc of The Bia Food Initiative and Food Cloud

FoodCloud is a community-based social enterprise that brings food businesses and charities together with an easy-to-use and reliable platform, matching those with too much food with those who have too little.

Speakers: Sometimes You Dream Out Loud Eric Werner & Mya Henry from Hartwood in Mexico talked about making their dream restaurant in the jungle a reality

By necessity, they consider sustainability first and foremost in all their work and in every decision at the restaurant. Solar panels power their lights and music and every other little thing that keeps the restaurant running.

They break down their waste with zero carbon footprint, creating 100% organic compost that is used in regenerating the mangrove environment and interior farming.

5. Waste Rebellion

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Want to start a Food ‘Revolution’?

5. Waste Rebellion

Future food innovation provocations:

1. Gut Appeal

2. Revolutionary Fervour

3. Conflict Cooking

4. Positive Imperfection

• How are your products placed to champion ‘gut health’ as it rises in profile?

• How can you use ‘gut health’ to inspire people to make better, more

instinctive decisions?

• Feed your customers’ rising revolutionary spirit, what’s your ‘seed bomb’

idea?

• Champion new food revolutionaries; equip them; lead them!

• Can you create new food mash ups born of conflict?

• How can you use food as a vehicle for positive social change?

• Get ready to embrace imperfection, sometimes the best ideas come from the

least expected places.

• Can you turn your imperfections into a positive?

• What are the creative waste opportunities your brand can champion?

• What is your ‘waste statement’?

• How can your brand inspire or lead this movement?

Five jump! provocations for the future of food innovation from Litfest 2016.