Category: Longlist

To meet growing global demand, meat production is projected to increase by at least 50 percent from 2012 levels by 2050. If the world is to achieve our climate, biodiversity, public health, and food security goals, making meat differently via alternative proteins will be as essential as the global transition to renewable energy. By reimagining how meat is made, we can produce food that people love and usher in a more sustainable, secure, and just food future. 

Alternative proteins—meat made from plants, cultivated from animal cells, or produced via fermentation—are designed to taste the same as or better than conventional animal products while costing the same or less and providing equivalent or better nutrition. Transitioning toward alternative proteins can dramatically reduce emissions, require far less land, eliminate the use of antibiotics in our food system, and feed more people with fewer resources.

Good Food Institute (GFI) is a nonprofit think tank working to make the global food system better for the planet, people, and animals. Alongside scientists, businesses, and policymakers, GFI’s teams focus on making alternative proteins delicious, affordable, and accessible. Powered by philanthropy, GFI is an international network of organizations advancing alternative proteins as an essential solution needed to meet the world’s climate, global health, food security, and biodiversity goals.

Their work centers on developing a roadmap to improve the way protein is made, by identifying the most effective solutions, mobilizing resources and talent, and empowering partners across the food system to make alternative proteins accessible, affordable, and delicious. GFI accelerates alternative protein innovation, working in the most critical economies and regions for alternative protein advancement: Asia Pacific, Brazil, Europe, India, Israel, and the United States. GFI maps out the most neglected areas that will allow alternative proteins to compete on taste, price, and nutrition and meets these challenges by developing open-access research and resources, educating, and connecting the next generation of scientists and entrepreneurs, and funding research that benefits alternative protein development across the sector. 

GFI also seeks to ensure that alternative proteins are a part of the policy discussion around climate change mitigation, global health, bioeconomies, and food security. In every region where GFI has a presence, they advocate for public investment and incentives to transition toward alternative proteins and say they are paving the way for the approval of novel proteins such as cultivated meat.

Further, GFI works to replicate past market transformations by showing companies of all sizes, from startups to multinationals, how alternatives to animal products can be profitable while meeting sustainability goals.

Finally, GFI is committed to free knowledge sharing. Unhampered by IP laws or trade secrets, their research, data, and insights are open-access and support the advancement of every innovator. They believe that governments should fund alternative protein R&D and incentivize private sector research, manufacturing, and infrastructure build-out.

According to GFI, which is supported by a global community of donors, in 2022 they awarded over $4 million in grants to projects across 13 countries on five continents. Their insights and resources were sought and featured in leading global and national media outlets, and they published 50 reports, resources, and peer-reviewed papers. They have 53 Alt Protein Project student chapters across North America, Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australia, and are growing. The future of how we feed the world is up to us, and GFI is leading the way.

Learn more about the Good Food Institute.

Category: Longlist

The data behind what we eat and how it’s produced should play a critical role in informing policies that support healthy people and planet. But this data has been fragmented, confusing, and difficult for policymakers to use. The Food Systems Dashboard is changing that by making food systems data and insights accessible to all, especially for decision makers who need it most.

The FSD states that it is one of the most comprehensive tools around for crunching data from farm to fork at both national and subnational, or regional, levels. Analyzing the impact of the food system on human and planetary health, it reveals and analyses the complex mix of issues which make up the narrative arc of food production.

According to the initiative, the platform is unique in terms of offering data on all main components of food systems presented in a visually appealing, easy to use format of maps, graphs, and tables, allowing users to compare and explore data by country, region, food system type, and country income group.

The FSD’s analysis is based on three pillars: «Describe,» «Diagnose,» and «Decide.» The first gives us a fascinating insight into what it takes to bring our food to the table; almost 300 indicators provide users a complete view of global food systems, from government policies to agricultural production and climate challenges issues. Data is sourced from over 40 agencies including the United Nations, World Bank, CGIAR, and Euromonitor.

The Diagnostic tool pulls focus on each country’s strengths and weaknesses, drilling deeper into its food supply chains, food environments (the physical, economic, political, and socio-cultural contexts of where we get our food), nutrition, health, and environmental impacts with a traffic light system giving clear alerts. For example, in Mozambique, greenhouse gas emissions from food consumption are coded green as an unlikely challenge area, while the biodiversity impact of food consumption is red.

The FSD brings together data on both the macro (national) and micro (subnational) levels, highlighting areas which have achieved balance, while showing clearly that no single country has got it right. The substantial agricultural yield gaps in lower-income countries, which are a major contribution to hunger as well as inefficient use of natural resources, are set against the excess consumption of sugar-sweetened drinks and ultra-processed foods in higher income countries.

Without this rigorous analysis of how food interacts with the planet, societies, and human health, decision makers are unable to improve food systems’ environmental sustainability through the choices they make. Through its «Decide» function, the FSD shows stakeholders how to use its evidence to find better solutions.

And it’s happening; the Country Dashboards, which dig into the subnational data across various administrative levels to supplement national averages, are a powerful tool for locally led evidence-based decision making and are already becoming embedded in governmental decisions; Indonesia uses its dashboard in its Ministry of National Development Planning. Countries dedicated to achieving the goal of food systems transformation by 2030, as outlined in the UN Food Systems Summit, utilize the subnational dashboards as one of the vital tools for governments to track progress. Launched in 2023 and 2024 the first Country Dashboards now exist for Bangladesh, Indonesia, Kenya, Nigeria, Mozambique, and Pakistan, bringing together subnational data that covers almost one billion people and informing decisions which could affect their lives. This year, work has also started on Dashboards in India and Rwanda, expanding FSD’s coverage to almost 2.5 billion people. With requests from governments in Tanzania, Benin, and Ethiopia, the FSD’s vision to play a critical role in supporting a healthy food planet is already becoming a reality.

Learn more about the Food Systems Dashboard.

Category: Longlist

Imagine a world where resilient, thriving communities are the norm, and where hunger is a thing of the past. Water scarcity and food insecurity in climate-vulnerable and low-income regions have been replaced by plenty of fresh produce grown in soil restoring farms, food forests, and gardens.

Growing to Give, a US non-profit, claims that this dream could become the key to community food resilience even in the smallest urban spaces. Growing to Give highlights two unique food growing systems, Crop Circle Farm and Gardens and a vine growing system called the Tomato Volcano, both of which are dedicated to transforming the landscape of agriculture and community well-being. Growing to Give’s mission is to combat water scarcity and food insecurity by promoting sustainable agriculture — optimizing efficient and productive growing areas in climate-vulnerable and low-income regions.

From small container gardens and backyard growing spaces to urban farms and rural acreages, Crop Circle Farms and Gardens are both pretty and productive. The organization states that these spiral food formations use 90 percent less water, 85 percent less fertilizer and a quarter of the land space used by conventional agriculture, and that they work synergistically with the natural environment above and below the soil thereby supporting biodiversity.

The Tomato Volcano is the organization’s showcase. The design keeps plants elevated from the soil and facilitates air circulation, preventing excess moisture that can lead to molds and mildews, and allowing for vines to grow as they would in nature over undulating ground.

During drought and wildfire season, plants still flourish. The organization says that users report that the systems are easy to harvest and require zero weeding, and that a small-scale farmer using a Tomato Volcano system in South Africa could expect a tenfold increase in tomato yields compared to traditional methods. Growing to Give claims that a Tomato Volcano system uses 50 percent less water than other methods and is based on an heirloom model that grows new plants from a non-GMO cultivar. Moreover, it is designed to last for generations. Marine-grade stainless steel construction can last 260 years, minimizing the ecological impact associated with manufacturing and the waste associated with short-lived products destined for the landfill.

Significantly boosting crop yields while conserving water and space in chemical-free growing environments means that Growing to Give can tackle food insecurity in many vulnerable parts of the world in a climate positive approach. It believes that a sustainable and equitable food system must come from innovations made to withstand the test of time.

Growing to Give says that it’s about empowering communities with the tools they need to thrive. The initiative, Strengthening Community Gardens Across America, Africa and the Caribbean, demonstrates Growing to Give’s commitment to educating farmers and communities in sustainable agriculture practices and sustainable living through webinars and online courses and resources.

*“One of our volunteers harvesting 4000 lbs of bell peppers for the food bank” – photo by Growing to Give.*

Those using the Growing to Give’s agricultural systems have expressed a deeper understanding of the environmental impact of their food choices and gardening practices. The organization’s long-term vision is to ensure that the impact lasts well beyond the next decade.

Those thriving communities may be just up ahead on the road toward a more sustainable food system. Growing to Give says that its initiatives are already enabling women who have traditionally been underrepresented in the economics of agriculture, to take a more active role, giving them economic independence. Promoting cooperation and engagement at all stages of its programs, it reports that farmers and smallholders are already creating more cohesive communities, growing more food, sharing knowledge, and building a sense of shared purpose and belonging as they tackle food security and climate-positive growing together.

Learn more about Growing to Give.

Category: Longlist

Australia’s largest food rescue organization, delivering food free of charge, is set to extend its reach from the shop floor to the farm gate as it steps up its bid to rescue and repurpose surplus food from farms. SecondBite has been delivering surplus food to people experiencing food insecurity in every state and territory of Australia since 2005, rescuing 25 million kg of unsold, edible food in Fiscal Year 2023 alone. But the surplus it distributes from markets, shops, supermarkets, and other retail outlets represents just 7% of total food waste in the country. Now the organization is setting its sights on the 40% of fruit and vegetables discarded at the farm gate, the bananas that are slightly too bent for supermarket standards, the apples with some hail damage, and potatoes that have retained too much water and wouldn’t make the grade with the buyers. The list is endless.

SecondBite says that it is these fruits and vegetables that are needed most to help support the healthy food requirements of vulnerable Australians, and is in discussions with its farming clients and philanthropic and freight partners to launch the Farm Fresh Project as a pilot.

It’s not the first organization to distribute food surplus in an effort to redress the double hit of food waste in Australia as a significant contributor to climate change and the nation’s growing food insecurity. But SecondBite’s expertise in national food logistics, operations, food rescue, storage, and redistribution could be a vital contribution to the national program and save more food from farms, regional hubs, wholesalers, and packing and redistribution centers to meet shortfalls in supply and increasing demand. Using its existing retail food rescue model, SecondBite aims to provide a regular stream of fresh produce into the food relief supply chain with some of Australia’s largest growers, manufacturers, and freight companies.

Like so many Western countries, the disconnect between home-grown food in an export-oriented agricultural industry and the food needs of the people who live there is huge. Australia produces more than enough food for its population of 26 million people, according to End Food Waste Australia, yet nearly 30% of that food is wasted. And the annual 17.5 million tonnes of CO2 in waste contributes significantly to environmental stress; Australia is responsible for some of the world’s highest mammal extinction rates, according to the World Wildlife Fund because of its shift in use of its land for agriculture.

The immorality of a wasteful food system doesn’t just affect the 48% of Australians who, according to the SecondBite Food Insecurity Survey Report 2023, admit to cutting back on or skipping at least one meal a week due to economic/financial reasons; the damage to localized ecosystems and stress on water supplies contributes to the dangerous increase in the effects of climate change in Australia.

It’s a win-win solution to food waste; SecondBite says that its pilot project which aims to rescue 500,000 kg of bananas every year, could save an estimated 950,000 kg of CO2e per annum. Even without an increase in bananas redirected from landfill, over 10 years that’s 9.5 million kg of CO2e prevented from entering the atmosphere while helping to improve the health and wellbeing of people needing food relief in Australia.

Learn more about SecondBite.

Category: Longlist

Nabahya Food Institute (NFI) believes that we are more powerful together than as individuals. That’s why their organization, based in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) brings local farmers to work in cooperatives, mitigating the cycle of poverty, starvation, and climate change. Their work promotes access to clean energy and resilient food systems with a commitment to tackling the dual challenge of increasing food production while protecting natural resources and the environment.

NFI has organized their work across four different categories: regenerative agriculture, clean energy, reforestation and conservation, and rural women empowerment. At the core of their organization, and what sets them apart from others, is their unique approach to addressing the aforementioned dual challenge of producing food while healing the planet. The main way they do this is by starting a fire — literally. NFI produces briquettes from crop residues, biomass, palm shells, coconut shells, and maize stalks, which are carbonized, mixed with a liquid binder, and compressed into briquettes. They buy raw materials from small-scale farmers, who are in turn paid in either cash or briquettes.

In the DRC, through NFI, briquettes are becoming a common way to heat and cook. NFI’s product reduces household cooking energy expenses, boosts food productivity, avoids air pollution, protects natural resources and the environment, empowers women, and helps consumers save time and money. Moreover, their product also helps enhance farmers’ yields through the production of bio-fertilizers and bio-pesticides.

In the eastern part of the DRC where NFI operates, the majority of small-scale farmers and those who use briquettes are women. To educate and empower these women, NFI has set up Farmer-Field Schools. Currently, their education process focuses on recycling and intercropping, to avoid dependence on chemical fertilizers, protect the local environment, and increase food yields.

With the briquettes, women are trained to mix the ashes with rabbit urine, manure, Tithonia diversifolia and biochar to create their own bio-fertilizers and bio-pesticides. According to the organization, this boosts crop yields at around 150 percent (p ≤ 0.05), compared to local agricultural practice (soil without biochar) at 60.4 percent. NFI farmers follow an intercropping approach, an age-old practice of growing two or more crops together, by using fodder trees and fruit trees. The organization focuses on tree species intercropping. According to NFI, trees native to the DRC deposit abundant quantities of organic fertilizer, thereby increasing yields, as leaves and pods fall onto the food crops and release nutrients. Native trees also provide forage for livestock and bees.

Learn more about the NFI.

Category: Longlist

A British company claims to have created the first product that can repurpose the world’s meat, poultry, dairy, and fish waste as a soil improver.

Aquagrain is a unique, organic based, biodegradable hydrogel made from animal waste which allows crops to be grown in sandy soil and arid lands with a fraction of the water usually required. It could become a game-changer in creating healthier soil.

Absorbing up to 30 times its mass in water or liquid fertilizer, it enables agricultural and horticultural crops as well as landscaping and ornamental plants to flourish. Aquagrain claims that it supplies crops with valuable nutrients, cutting the requirement for inorganic fertilizers, while significantly stimulating microbial activity in the soil.

But it is also a valuable solution to the massive greenhouse gas emissions from animal waste which is usually burned, creating CO₂, or sent to landfill, creating methane. According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, in 2019, global food systems accounted for 17 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent to 31% of human-made greenhouse gas emissions. That includes emissions related to farming and land use, producing crops and livestock, household food consumption and waste, and energy used in farm and food processing and transportation. Aquagrain believes that it could not only reduce this by transforming animal waste into a product that can feed plants, but also restore soil health.

*Aquagrain CEO Paul Smith and Silal’s Senior Officer Trials, Dr. Shoet Khot discussing onion trials. Photo by Aquagrain*

As a simple product that requires no specialist equipment, farm machinery or infrastructure, its application could be vast. And its cost from as little as £250 per hectare could ensure a global appeal. The granules or jellies, which the company claims could increase crop yield by as much as 3 times, can be spread on fields by standard farm machinery or applied by hand, and could transform unproductive poor soils into crop-producing soils.

It could even help reverse desertification. Aquagrain tests have shown that it can cut sand movement by 99% in winds up to 30 kph, protecting crops from wind blow at the critical early stage of development. Its sandy crust also reduces the evaporation of soil moisture.

While animals on the land have become one of the most hotly contested issues in arguments about climate change, regenerative farming, which harnesses the power of their natural fertilizing capacity, is gathering clout. Aquagrain says that its innovative technology supports the growth of this natural form of farming while cutting emissions from the disposal of their waste. By improving crop yields, this low impact technology with no directly comparable products could prove to have a massive influence in reducing hunger.

The company now wants to deploy its product globally. As Aquagrain is made from meat and dairy industry waste streams which, in most countries, have strict biosecurity and food safety regulations, the transportation has regulatory hurdles. Aquagrain says that by building production facilities at the source of the organic waste streams within each regulatory region, it would avoid these regulations, reduce emissions for transporting materials and invite fewer cultural objections to the source of Aquagrain’s organic ingredients.

Learn more about Aquagrain.

Category: Longlist

A new collaboration of environmental heavyweights has created a framework to restore degraded and deforested land, addressing one of the defining challenges of our time.

The Restoration Initiative (TRI) brings together nine countries and three Global Environment Facility agencies — the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) — to reverse unsustainable farming practices and other drivers of deforestation and ecosystem degradation that contribute to food insecurity and climate change.

One of the biggest global drivers of deforestation and forest degradation is an agricultural system that degrades soil through chemical interventions, destroying ecosystems and delivering lower yields, compromising water quality and access, and resulting in lower incomes to rural communities. TRI is reversing the impact of decades of poor practices, enhancing ongoing land-use strategies to provide sustainable and nutritious food, fodder and fuel production to the local people living and working on these lands.

*TRI project beneficiaries producing seed balls to revive degraded forests. Photo Credit– TRI Pakistan*

TRI aims to restore healthy lands involving communities that rely on the natural ecosystems under threat. TRI’s global team helps countries to increase their seed cultivation and genetic diversity, while local units train communities in sustainable land management, climate-smart agriculture, value-chain development, and techniques to restore degraded forest areas, which in turn will improve water security. TRI emphasises that its real value resides in the collaborative opportunities it creates through its international and national teams. The combined expertise in policy design, institutional capacity building and best practices, private sector engagement and finance mobilization may well be the key to its success.

Forests, mangroves, grasslands, and semi-arid lands of Kenya, Tanzania, China, Pakistan, Cameroon, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Central African Republic, Guinea Bissau, and Sao Tome and Principe are part of this bold alliance encompassing governments, international and national partners, and local stakeholders. For example, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, TRI has facilitated funding of 70 microprojects to improve household incomes through forest and landscape restoration by engaging with existing community organisations. Its impact has already reached 3 680 households. In Guinea Bissau, collaborations between governments, non-profit organizations, businesses, and local communities have helped to repair coastal ecosystems and facilitated long-term mangrove restoration. In Cameroon, 12 nurseries have cultivated over 211 628 bamboo and non-timber forest product plants, and 142 local stakeholders have been trained in restoration practices.

According to the organization, incentivizing investment in restoration is critical, and its model includes financial and technical support directly to those on the ground. TRI’s global team of experts from IUCN, FAO, and UNEP collaborate with country teams to reinforce results, improve current agricultural practices, and promote restoration, while training locals to develop their agricultural businesses.

TRI’s anticipated impacts are significant: 483 000 hectares under restoration, 1.8 million hectares under improved sustainable management, and 30.4 tCO2eq emission reductions/removals. It’s a massive plan for the restoration of degraded lands and forests across the world. To bolster its impact, TRI maintains that, with additional funding, the initiative could significantly enhance food and water security, mitigate against climate change impacts, conserve biodiversity, and create employment opportunities.

Learn more about the Restoration Initiative.

Category: Longlist

An ancient fruit tree could be the answer to thousands of families in South America at risk of becoming climate refugees as slash and burn threatens to destroy their farmlands.

The super-resilient, nitrogen-fixing Inga tree has been central to food culture in pre-Columbian Peru for thousands of years, its fruit sold in local markets and making up the basic indigenous diet.

But slash and burn, the farming practice which is used to clear land for planting, has resulted in the rapid loss of soil fertility. 200,000 acres of rainforest are destroyed every day by slash-and-burn agriculture, forcing subsistence farming families to clear new patches of rainforest to feed themselves. And as the climate crisis brings severe heat and drought, thousands face starvation with no alternative than to flee to cities to find food.

The Inga Foundation believes that its Inga tree model can reverse this agricultural practice while improving livelihoods among the rural poor. It says it can create employment, particularly for women and young people, without the need for loans to invest in new technology.

During El Niño in 2023, Honduras experienced prolonged and intense drought with over four months without a drop of rain, sparking concerns about the loss of many thousands of trees. Yet within two weeks of the first rainfall, defoliated Inga trees began to regrow their foliage. The Inga Tree Foundation claims that this shows that tree-based systems are resilient to climatic violence.

The Inga Foundation has trained 450 Honduran farming families to plant alleys of 5 million Inga trees, regenerating 600 acres of steep, degraded slopes, sequestering carbon, protecting wildlife and marine habitats, preserving watersheds, and creating new springs. The trees are planted in hedgerows and along contours with crops planted in between the rows, breaking the destructive cycle of slash-and-burn and allowing farming families to stay on their land and aim for sustainable food security. Inga nurseries have already distributed over 350,000 cacao plants, 75,000 black pepper plants, thousands of hardwoods, citrus, avocado, vanilla, turmeric, and many other crops.

*Pruning operation on a demonstration farm at Las Flores in the Cuero valley, Atlántida, Honduras. Photo by Inga Tree*

The mulch of the Inga tree provides a unique environment for corn and beans, vital food as well as cash crops, to grow without irrigation or a drop of rain. The thick mulch from the pruned leaves keeps the soil cool and moist, and the fast-regrowing trees shade crops such as coffee, cacao, and tea. The Foundation claims that within 18-24 months, the participating families have become completely self-sufficient in basic grains.

The alleys of trees have been shown to provide much more than food; planted near the family homes, they stop erosion and mudslides, and provide vital renewable firewood when the trees are pruned annually.

The Inga Foundation claims that its alley cropping is a fully integrated ecosystem which naturally recreates conditions of the forest floor, stabilizing and replenishing the soil and slowing the socially destructive rural-urban migration, which could have life-changing results for the rural poor. Working with the local farm workers is about graining trust, and the Inga Foundation has built a demonstration or pilot farm at Las Flores in the Cuero valley, Honduras where they run regular open days to allow families from across the area to come and see the benefits for themselves.

The program claims to be the most successful of its kind, fulfilling 14 of the United Nation’s 17 Sustainable Development Goal (SDGs), its blueprint for achieving a better and more sustainable future. And now the Foundation believes that the model could be rolled out across all humid tropics where the rural poor are being forced off their depleted land to find food.

Learn more about Inga Foundation.

Category: Longlist

Waxy apples and lemons could become a thing of the past in our supermarkets as a new plant-based emulsion offers a sustainable solution to reducing food waste.

Shel-Life is a 100% plant-based coating from Chilean bio tech company PolyNatural, which aims to replace the chemical coatings we’re used to seeing — and tasting — on a host of our favorite fruits. The coating prevents fruits from dehydration and maintains their freshness for a longer period compared to untreated produce.

The vast majority of fruit coatings on the market consists of synthetic waxes that are made up of petroleum-derivatives. Now PolyNatural claims their plant-based coatings are healthier than most of their competitors, both for human consumption and for the planet.

Shel-Life forms a natural coating to the surface of fruits such as avocados, apples, pears, nectarines, plums, and citrus, and has organic certification according to OMRI and ECOCERT. Its natural solution to a longer shelf life could be a game-changer for Latin American farmers in the fight to reduce food waste sustainably.

The United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization estimates that postharvest losses can reach up to 20 percent for cereals, 30 percent for dairy and fish, and 40 percent for fruit and vegetables. According to PolyNatural, its Shel-Life natural coating has prevented 273.6 tons of fruit and vegetables from being wasted, and saved 157,041 m³ of water.

So far, its products have been tested in Chile, Argentina, Peru, Colombia, Mexico, the United States, Spain, Germany, and Kenya, and used by packing companies in Chile and the US. The company now wants to improve the production facilities and grow its commercial offer. PolyNatural estimates the total market potential for Shel-Life in the US as US $20 million, and globally as US $12 billion.

Learn more about PolyNatural.

Category: Longlist

The African continent is rich with natural resources and an ancient farming tradition, and yet, today, 80% of Africans cannot afford a healthy diet. Undernutrition, as well as higher risk of chronic food-related illnesses such as diabetes, impact millions of people, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa. Only 50% of the fruit and vegetable volumes needed to meet dietary recommendations are available on the continent, let alone accessible to consumers. African countries are also some of the most vulnerable to climate change; by 2050, under a 3°C warming trajectory, the number of undernourished Africans is expected to rise from 282 million to over 350 million people.

The Nutritious Foods Financing Facility (N3F), led by the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition and Incofin Investment Management, was conceived in 2017 as a source of innovative financing for agrifood small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) through an impact fund. It officially launched in December 2023, focusing on agrifood SMEs in Sub-Saharan Africa, including Tanzania, Kenya, Mozambique, Nigeria, Rwanda, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Niger, Senegal, Benin, Uganda, Mali, and Ghana (which jointly cover 54% of Africa’s population). SMEs comprise the vast majority of African food business and are an untapped resource for promoting sustainability and accessibility of nutritious food. Nutrition is arguably the development sector with the biggest imbalance between potential impact and level of investment: fewer than 1% of donor investments in development are in nutrition, but 22% of adult deaths are attributable to dietary risks, with an even greater share of child deaths attributable to undernutrition. N3F thus supports African agrifood SMEs to increase the local supply of safe, high-quality, nutritious foods (thereby improving food accessibility); to reduce environmental impact (including through decreased food losses and lower greenhouse gas emissions); and to develop climate change adaptation strategies.

The initiative consists of three main pillars. Firstly, N3F aims to be the first open-ended impact fund with consumer nutrition at its core, delivering mid to long-term financing to SMEs that provide safe and nutritious foods to local consumers in the region. Through a blended finance structure, the fund allows organizations with different objectives to invest alongside each other while achieving their own impact and return goals. N3F believes this structuring approach will reduce the overall investment risk for senior-tranche investors to attract more private capital in the fund.

Second, targeted technical assistance will be provided to investee SMEs to support their business performance, enhance the quality of their products (including nutritional value), strengthen their supply chain, improve their contribution to gender equality, and reduce their environment impact — also increasing SMEs’ ability to serve domestic markets. Finally, a monitoring, evaluation, and learning component will help to track companies’ performance and social impact, while developing metrics and approaches that can be used by others interested in nutrition-sensitive investment.

N3F has developed and tested a framework and tools for sustainable nutrition investing, including an initial screening to assess potential investee SMEs according to the foods they produce as well as an audit tool to assess each SME according to five dimensions: nutrition, environment, supply chain, gender, and job creation. According to the initiative, to date they have obtained $11.5 million from donors and foundations in investments. N3F aims to prove that nutrition is investable and to share tools and lessons learned, with a global goal of influencing others to invest in nutrition in an environmentally conscious way.

Environmental sustainability has been fully integrated into N3F’s design as one of five impact areas to be assessed throughout the investment cycle. For instance, N3F will assess its investees’ plans or processes to reduce natural resource use; reduce carbon footprint; expand renewable energy practices and recycling programs; address food waste/food loss; and reduce plastic packaging pollution, among others. Each SME engaged with the N3F will have its climate and environmental contributions assessed at two stages in the process, first at the investment decision point and later during the monitoring and reporting on the impact of the fund. These assessments will also be used by the technical assistance arm of the N3F to ensure that SMEs have a sound climate agenda.

Learn more about N3F.

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