The food system: how can businesses contribute to improve environmental and social sustainability?

What does Jamie Oliver, Professor Xitibu and Uncle Ben have in common?

Nothing right…? First I would recommend watching the TedTalk of Jamie Oliver, then think about the time when you were at school and about your lovely ones at home. Hopefully you will then understand that they all tried to teach things such as food and education in a clearer way for you.

Sitting on the train on my way back home I started talking with the person next to me about the specific topic sustainability, especially asking questions about the food system (e.g sugar, tobacco and fuel taxes). What would change socially in the mind-set and what would change in the briefcases of consumers or the balances in big companies? 

We also had some discussion about what would change if governments raised taxes on tobacco even higher, so I began researching how effective tobacco control policy measures were for reducing smoking behavior among youth. The result was not really surprising for me: the researchmakes it clear that smoking behavior among youth decreased, but it depends on their backgrounds (e.g. socio-economic).

But if governments taxed everything that was harmful, would there be something left in the unhealthy shelves in the supermarkets? We agree that children start consuming too much high caffeine and sugar dozed products too early. My first ‘simple’ suggestion was “what about an age regulation on these risky products? How would big companies react then?”. This could be a first step in the right direction. In my opinion, start raising taxes and investing them into an effective, long-term educational program. Would it be possible to have an Uncle Ben in the supermarket, who tries to explain kids which alternatives there are instead of Red Bull, Monster Energy drinkand Coca Cola?  Maybe the kids drink it because it’s cool? 

“Marketing is a contest for people`s attention.” Seth Godin