How innovation could drive a more sustainable and safer food system
Vincent Doumeizel
Lloyds Register, UK
: J Food Nutr Disor
Abstract
The ultimate objective of any market economy can only be strengthened by more social justice. It is even more relevant when it comes to food, food is much more than a commodity. Food tells you about your journey into life, your traditions and the world you want to live in. A year ago, 160 countries voted at the United Nations (UN) to make food a human right as opposed to being a commodity. It was defined that everyone on this planet should have access to sufficient food – both quantitively and qualitatively - in a culturally acceptable way. On that goal, we are getting better but it’s not done yet and there’s a long way to go.So, Lloyd’s Register has been working in the food sector for many years and is a worldwide leader in food audit and verification services and solutions, but as mentioned, the food supply chain has a lot of obstacles to overcome. 1) World expanding population: To feed our fast growing population, we will need to produce as much food in the next 50 years that we ever produced over the last 10 000 years 2) Food fraud: Lack of production and low price expectations is a strong driver for food fraud 3) Lack of traceability: Global and very fragmented supply chains = No traceability 4) Environmental issues & social responsibilities: Food is responsible for GHG emissions, depletion of natural resources, land erosion, deforestation, massive pollution, modern slavery, water scarcity, … 5) Affordability: Food as a basic need has to be affordable to everyone 6) Social media & brand reputation: Uncontrolled information flow on social media is a big risk for the food brands and sector as a whole At Lloyd’s Register, we have a vision. We started out in 1760 as a marine classification society. Today, we’re one of the world’s leading providers of professional services for engineering and technology over 75 countries worldwide. The profits we generate fund the Lloyd’s Register Foundation (Foundation), a charity which supports engineering-related research, education and public engagement. Our heritage of working with the ocean is driving a number of initiatives looking at how we can continue to feed the growing world population both safely and sustainably. The first one has been a grant to Wageningen University for intensive seaweed productions. Offshore seaweed production is a very promising production to feed the world population, cut greenhouse gas through better feed for our livestock, provide alternative packaging solution and be a source of energy or fresh water. This is part of the “Blue Revolution”. We should further use the ocean (offshore sea farms, agriculture, parallel use of the sea, etc.) to create new solutions provide solutions to continue to improve our performances in feeding this We should rely on incredibly disruptive new technologies to create a new transparent and traceable food system. But the most important part lies with all of us. We are connected together by the same food system and we are the driver of the change. So, all together, we can vote for the world we want to live in each time we eat and drink something and need to remember that there are those who cannot yet vote because they are deprived of their right to food. We may be remembered as the first generation on this planet that managed to create a food system capable to feed the entire population with safe and sustainable food.Through technology, innovation and vision - we should help to deliver against that goal.
Biography
Vincent Doumeizel has joined in 2014 Lloyd’s Register, the world’s leading provider of independent assessment, as Vice President for Food and Sustainability at group level serving over 100+ countries and thousands of clients. He also supports actively the charitable objectives of the Lloyd’s Register Foundation (LRF), notably through the identification and funding of innovative projects to mitigate food insecurity as well as through participation to Advisory Boards in various universities projects across Europe. He is actively involved in exploring the impact of blockchains on the food supply chain and has contributed to the latest LRF foresight reviews of distributed ledgers as well as the one of resilience engineering.
E-mail: vincent.doumeizel@lr.org
