The world has 60 harvests left. 60 more years of food before our soil quality is diminished to the point of no return. In our zeal to produce more and more food at low cost, we are stripping nutrients from the soil, undermining our future capacity to grow food. We need a plan for a food system that works.

All our food is designed. Food brands and retailers influence what it is, how it's grown, made, and packaged, and have the power to make nature-positive choices the norm. So everything we eat has a positive impact on the environment.

The circular economy is increasingly recognised as a solutions framework to address global challenges like climate change and biodiversity loss. Moving towards a food system that builds natural capital and that is pro-nature, i.e. one that allows nature to thrive, is an essential part of the transition to a circular economy.

While the current food system has sustained a growing population and brought economic development, much of it is essentially ‘linear’ and extractive, particularly in more developed markets. It is wasteful, polluting, and depletive, and is the primary driver of biodiversity loss and accounts for a third of global greenhouse gas emissions.

This study looks at the role fast-moving consumer goods companies (FMCGs) and food retailers can play to move us towards a food system with significant positive impacts for business, people, and the environment. It explores the ways in which food products can be designed in closer collaboration with farmers, for nature. It also investigates the crucial enabling role of policies and incentives.

Most food, from breakfast cereals to pasta, has been designed. Intentional decisions have been made that determine the food’s flavour, texture, nutritional content, and appearance. Food design includes shaping a product’s concept, ingredient selection, sourcing, and packaging.

To design for positive consumer, farmer, economic, and environmental outcomes, the principles of the circular economy can be applied to the way we design food.

These principles are: eliminate waste and pollution, circulate products and materials, and regenerate nature – and by taking a systemic approach in the creation of products and services, they can be applied across industries.

In order to maximise benefits in the food system, circular economy principles should be applied across all dimensions of food design, from product concept, through ingredient selection and sourcing, to packaging.

Four circular design opportunities for food

There are four key opportunities for circular design for food: using ingredients that are lower impact, diverse, upcycled and regeneratively produced. Each opportunity brings its own benefits for people and nature, but benefits are maximised when the opportunities are combined.
Changing our food system to one based on the principles of the circular economy is one of the most powerful things we can do to tackle climate change and build biodiversity. We can achieve this and provide healthy nutritious food for all.

The current food system doesn’t work for everyone, and it certainly doesn’t work for the environment. Industrial farming has turned agriculture into a leading source of greenhouse gas emissions and pollution, and is driving the extinction of species.

Not only do we produce food in a way that won’t work in the long term, but we also waste almost a third of it while nearly 10% of the world’s population go hungry.