Analytics, EU – Baltic States, Foodstuff, Forum, Modern EU

The purpose of the global movement “Better Food for More People” and the annual World Food Summit in Denmark has been to analyse modern potential in “healthy consumption” in order both to find solutions for “better food for more people” concept/movement and to look into sustainability through integrated approaches. These are the issues that are becoming important globally and domestically!

The “world food” challenge is about getting governments, the private sector and civil society to re-think the food system, and act together to mobilize and empower over seven billion global population to take it seriously. The solution involves a holistic approach to the role and importance of food in society, in culture, in politics, environment, economics and even art.

Global food summits also aim at pushing forward solutions concerning sustainable food systems and healthy lives to achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

New platform for discussions

The World Food Summit in Denmark has become during last couple of years the world's principal forum for discussing food challenges of global relevance and furthering the “better food for more people” movement. The summit is widely recognised as a vital platform for interaction, insight, and impact bringing together international and national political decision-makers, industry leaders and experts (as well as global gastronomy frontrunners) to develop partnerships and solutions to be turned into local actions and policies. The latter issues are in political agendas of many states; and that’s true - without active participation of governments and NGOs any positive changes can hardly be expected.  

More on the summit ideas and program in:

http://bfmp.dk/world-food-summit/archive/world-food-summit-2018/themes/

Short summits’ history

The first "World Food Conference", took place in Rome in 1974; only in more than twenty years (!?) global community took closer attention to food issues and arranged the first world food summit – again in Italy in November 1996- mainly because the UN FAO is placed in Rome.

The first summit’s results are seen in the “Rome Declaration on World Food Security” in which member states stated their “pledge, political will and common national commitment to achieve food security for all and to efforts to eradicate hunger in all countries, with an immediate view to reducing the number of undernourished people to half their present level no later than 2015”.

See: Rome Declaration (1996) United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation, in:  http://www.fao.org/docrep/003/w3613e/w3613e00.htm and in:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rome_Declaration_on_World_Food_Security .

In June 2002, at the World Food Summit in Italy, the states adopted the “Declaration of the World Food Summit: five years later”, calling for the establishment of an intergovernmental working group to prepare a set of guidelines on the implementation of the right to food.

This resulted in the drafting – for the first time in “food history” - of the “Right to Food Guidelines”. See more in: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_Food_Guidelines

Next was the world summit on food security, which took place in Italy in November 2009. It was convened by the FAO’s Council decision and sixty heads of state and government attended the summit. Countries unanimously adopted a declaration pledging renewed commitment to eradicate hunger from the earth at the earliest possible date.

On food security see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Summit_on_Food_Security_2009

Then, FAO’s activities in organising summit “moved” to the organisation’s member states, of which Denmark has been most active.

Besides, rapid population growth and climate change pose new challenges to an already complicated and even broken food system, which can only be fixed by the collective global efforts. In this regard, the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN) was launched by the UN in 2002 to tackle the human suffering caused by malnutrition. Working with partners, GAIN aims at making healthier food choices more affordable, more available, and more desirable.

More on „Gain”, see in: https://www.gainhealth.org/about/gain/

Denmark’s initiative: taking the lead

challenge: better food for more people”, with the purpose of starting international dialogue on how to unleash the full potential of gastronomy in cities around the world and to ensure better food for more people. Since then, such “food summits” have become an annual event.

Thus, the “world food-2016” discussed issues concerning providing better food for the growing urban population with focus on gastronomy as a tool to ensure safe, healthy, tasteful and affordable food in an urbanized world. To frame this kind of discussion, the summit introduced a metaphor for all the food prepared and served in the kitchens in the cities: “the big kitchen”.

The summit explored the extent to which “all kitchens” succeeded in using gastronomy as a key driver for “better food for more people’s” concept.  

The global movement “Better Food for More People” and the annual World Food Summit in Copenhagen in September 2017 was taking place for the second year in order to unleash the full potential of gastronomy and achieve solid actions that ensure better food for more people wordwide. See more on summits in 2016 and 2017 in:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVC98aqZkJo and

https://www.gainhealth.org/knowledge-centre/event/world-food-summit-2017/

Danish Arla: most interested in ”food for more people’s” concept

“Arla Foods” is an international cooperative based in Denmark and is the largest producer of dairy products in Scandinavia. Arla Foods was formed after merging the Swedish dairy cooperative Arla and the Danish dairy company MD Foods in April 2000. The name Arla derives from the same word as the English word "early" and is an archaic Swedish term for "early (in the morning)". See more in: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arla_Foods.

Actually, the first cooperative dairy was established in Sweden at Stora Arla Gård in Västmanland in 1881 under the name of Arla Mejeriförening. The first Danish cooperative dairy was established in Hjedding in Southern Jutland in 1882. 

Arla Foods is the fourth largest dairy company in the world concerning milk volumes and the seventh globally with respect to turnover. For example in 2016, about 12,500 farmers across Western Europe and Scandinavia owned the Arla cooperative.

Among Arla Food brands there are about 24 names; however, there are three minor brands also known in the Baltic States: Arla Brand, Lurpak and Castello cheeses, which are sold worldwide. The Arla Brand is both a cooperative brand and a brand across all product categories. The Lurpak brand of butter and spreads is owned by the Danish Dairy Board, and Castello is a cheese brand including blue cheese and yellow cheeses.

See more in: https://www.arla.com/our-brands/all-our-brands/

As a cooperative company owned by milk producers, it wants to ensure creating much value from the milk producers and thereby achieve a competitive milk price for the company, consumers and suppliers. See: https://www.arla.com/company/strategy/mission/

Presently Arla is the world’s fifth largest dairy company in terms of milk intake: the farmers are expected to increase milk production from about 14 billion kg in 2015 to 16 billion kg in 2020.

Towards 2020, the company expects 50% growth coming from Europe (which is one of six focus regions in Arla’s strategy; particularly from the UK, Denmark and Sweden). Other 50% in growth will come from markets outside Europe with the focus on five market regions in which the Middle East, China, United States, Nigeria (and probably Russia when it will be re-opened for business). See more in:

https://www.arla.com/company/strategy/strategy-2020/for-our-farmer-owners/ 

Urgent issues as revealed and resolved

The Danish forum-2018 included five parallel sessions.

- First, the “better information” session focussed on increasing understanding of healthy food through “rethinking” of the food systems with the emphasis of, for example, teaching cooking in the schools and universities. Thus, school programs on health and nutrition shall become a new approach to healthy food as part of the nations’ wellbeing concept.

- Second, “food safety” session was about reducing illness and diseases caused by non-quality and contaminated food: about 10 % people in the world fall ill each year due to these factors, which means an annual loss of 33 million healthy-life years. The whole food chain –from production to consuming – shall ensure that food does not cause any negative effect. The issues in the session have been in line with at least two SDGs: the SDG-3 on good health and wellbeing and SDG-8 on economic growth. Very important part of the session was devoted to gastronomy issues with an accent to such aspects as preparing and “appreciating” food.

- Third, the “food heritage” session focussed on ensuring healthier living through analysis and involvement of different food cultures. The issue is generally “realised” in the cities, where diverse cultures meet and mix. Two trends are evident here: increasingly standardized food cultures and specific diets with various methods of cooking. The conclusion from the Copenhagen summit-2017 acknowledged that about half of the people in the world “actively use knowledge of food diversity to guide their meal choices and food culture”.

- Fourth, the session on “prevention of food waste” discussed the ways to initiate and scale solutions to reduce food loss and food waste. The session concluded that presently with limited resources, it has been vital to introduce sustainable consumption and production methods in all countries. Thus, about one-third of food produced in the world gets lost or wasted each year on production and consumption. Session’s participants stressed that gastronomic knowledge would facilitate the use of leftovers and reduce food wastes.

-Fifth session analysed food issues in the human settlements and cities. Suffice it to say that presently about half the global population resides in cities and towns: this is where the “genera; food consumption” is actually taking place. The “food patterns” are part of the general urban challenges, thus becoming an integral part of the solutions in the SDG-11 on sustainable cities and communities. In Copenhagen, for example, the “city-public meals” approach has been used to promote the organic food consumption.  

Additionally, food exhibition “Bite Copenhagen” (as part of the general food summit’s agenda) was organised in the Copenhagen’s biggest exhibition area, the Bella Center to focus on gastronomy. It was regarded as a vital tool to practically resolve modern food challenges; more on that - in the second part of the article.      

In the conclusion it has to be mentioned that this week a “sister-event” on food issues is taking place in Latvia. For the 24^th time in Riga, the international exhibition Riga Food-2018 devoted to such issues as foodstuffs, beverages, food processing, technologies, packing, and service of public nutrition occurs during 5-8 September 2018 in the Latvian capital. See more in: 

http://www.baltic-course.com/rus/good_for_business/?doc=142795&ins_print