'Transparency and collaboration are necessary for system change'

Sustainability is a major issue and it is not only large companies in the food chain that have to deal with sustainability reporting CSRD (Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive). Smaller companies are also being asked to disclose their impact on the world. If you want to become more sustainable and future-proof, it is inevitable to critically examine and perhaps abandon the current system of just making a profit.

In becoming more sustainable, it helps to share data, such as about production and business processes. Artificial intelligence - in English Artificial Intelligence (AI) - plays an important role here. It is a smart tool to use public data to create new recipes, for example. Yet this development has a downside: namely, who owns the new invention? Is it perhaps attributable to a party that has already invested in it? Good laws and regulations are then necessary.

In a tight labor market in the food industry, AI and robotization have already made a positive contribution to making business processes more efficient. But again, adapting an outdated business process, where a capital-intensive investment was made in the past, is costly. The new smart solution is desirable, but requires a new investment, while the effects of the previous one are still running. 

In the current energy transition, caused by the gigantic rise in gas and electricity prices, some industrial bakers have invested in installing sensors and using AI dashboards. The result: a twenty-five percent reduction in their gas consumption. They have gained insight into where energy is being lost. Combined with smart data coming from baking and cooling technologies and the efficient use, i.e. fewer raw materials, they are striking an even bigger blow. 

With a roadmap, we help entrepreneurs: what have you already done? What can you still do? Is that worth exploring? We started with industrial bakers, but now we are talking to the entire food industry. In this transition we still have a long way to go, because in ten years the world will look very different. The short-term solutions when it comes to sustainability will continue, such as the development of green electricity. In the long term, I expect companies to move away from the model of profit maximization. Then the emphasis will be on genuine cooperation in the chain, holding each other and striving for continuity through profit optimization. It ensures a good balance between production, raw materials and energy. The economy is changing from supply-driven to demand-driven. Transparency, such as AI and data sharing, is crucial to this. It will better predict demand! It is important to learn from each other.