You're listening to Heritage Radio Network. Hi,
everyone. Welcome to Pot Luck Food Talks. Today,
I'm here with Johan Jorgensen from Sweden Food
Tech, and we're going to talk about food systems.
How are you, Johan? How are you doing? Oh, I'm
just fine. And talking about food systems is
a lovely way to spend an afternoon. So let's
start with the beginning. How did you end up
in the food world? Because your background, as
far as I understand, is like a techie background,
right? Yeah, well, I'm a business school guy
from the beginning. But many, many, many moons
ago, I joined the Swedish internet scene at the
beginning of that movement. And I've spent my
life in tech ever since. But in 2011, I was horribly,
horribly bored with the tech sector and decided
I need to get away from all these. crappy online
casinos or dating apps. I was an investor at
that time. And I said, I need to do something
that is meaningful. And then, oops, what about
food? Because I'd been kind of interested in
how to grow things with artificial light then,
because that's semiconductor light and that's
very techy in a way. I was always fascinated
by tech. And then I said, okay, so what about
food? And I took a dive and, oops, here we have
the largest sector on the planet and it's killing
the planet. and everyone on it, and no innovation
to be seen anywhere, especially coming from the
tech sector. I've been part of transforming many
sectors over the years. I didn't see the remotest
similarity to that type of technological... how
to say, profess or interest in the food sector.
So it turned out to me, it's like, oh, this is
a magic cocktail because this system really needs
to transform badly and tech and innovation will
be at the core of that. And the only question
is when and where this will happen. I first met
you, we were in Brussels. I remember your intro
was incredible. You said something like, well,
the food system is a problem. It's making us
sick, poor, stupid. broke and something like
that like i probably stapled all those invectives
on top of each other because i i really think
that that the food sector is a source of a lot
of evil instead of a lot of good that it really
could but a lot of food is of course good right
but the system itself has been constructed in
such a way that it really brings us shit instead
of And I think when we start to correct food,
it's not just about producing better greens or
so. It's about addressing the system itself and
how it has been constructed over the years. I
mean, you know, all these big food companies,
they get a lot of bad rap for basically doing
what the system tells them to do. Now, let's
back a bit here. So why do I think that the food
system... It's the thing to talk about rather
than the players in the food system. Well, it's
because we have this framework, this politically
constructed framework around food. Everything
from subsidies to the various types of legislations
regarding what you can eat or what you can serve.
And all of that is driving the players in the
industry in a direction. And that direction is
industrial large scale. So these large industrial
food companies are only doing what they're supposed
to do within the realms of the system as we have
constructed it. They act completely logically
and we shouldn't blame them for doing that because
they're just acting as any other normal company
would do. So if we want to shift or transform
food, we need to start looking at the food system
itself and how we have framed the food system.
And then these players who are really smart and
savvy, they can run in the right direction instead
of the wrong direction. And, you know, we need
their force and their competences. It just needs
to be right, you know, directed in another, you
know, in another direction. So, I mean, the food
system is big and it's massive, but it has been
constructed and reconstructed time and time again.
So let's just do it another time. And this one,
let's make it happen so it stays with us. I guess
this is one of those things that perhaps it was
not designed. There was not an architect behind
it. It was just like forces that shaped it and
interests and these kind of things. But let's
start with the beginning. Let's start with a
definition of what the food system is, because
I guess some listeners could be wondering what
we're actually talking about. The way I understand
it is not only, the production sector but there
are it's more like an ecosystem where there are
many things around and there could be logistics
there could be journalists activists politicians
also methods of productions and i would say at
the very end is a consumer and just next to the
consumer would be let's say markets supermarkets
and also restaurants and chefs that also can
play a role in shaping the demand and the way
of consuming. Like, does that make sense to you?
Yeah, it makes, you know, to me, food says miss
everything. I mean, food is running the planet.
And, you know, mind you, it's also the part of
how good grades the kids get at school. That
depends on how we feed them, how productive we
are at work. It depends on how well we eat. much
in the same way as a top athlete performs better
or worse, depending on if he or she has eaten
well or the correct stuff. So food is affecting
everything, and that we must understand. And
then I think it's also important to understand
that food is not just primarily, in my book at
least, about food, but rather that what's on
the plate, right? The effects of food on health,
so to say, our health systems as also food system,
because some 80 to 90 percent of all the health
care budgets goes towards chronic diseases such
as cancer, diabetes or, you know, heart attacks.
And those diseases come out of bad consumption
habits, mainly food, some tobacco, some alcohol,
but mainly food. And the same thing goes for
the environment. So all our environmental negative
effects today, we could fix the climate by fixing
food. Piece of cake. But we need to realize that
food is the major culprit when it comes to climate
degradation. Do you have a particular take on
what could be some strategies or directions or
which are the players that could help in reshaping
or rethinking the way we interact with the food
system? Ultimately, this is about political leadership,
political insights, or insights rather, that
policymakers... internalize and then react upon
and then realize they can actually do things
with the stroke of a pen. So let's back a bit
in time. So the industrial food system that we
have today is basically a construct from the
1950s, 1960s, when we realized that demographic
curve of planet Earth told us, yeah, we'll be
four times the population that we are today and
we need to feed them. How the hell are we supposed
to do that? And we threw exactly everything we
had at the problem. You know, industrial scale
machinery, new financing solutions. We banged
farms together in order to increase industrial
efficiencies. And lo and behold, we actually
fixed it. So we have enough food today to feed
close to 10 billion people, right? I understand
also that... This period you were talking about,
like the Marshall Plan had an important role
in it, which was the plan of the American army
to rebuild the food system in Europe after World
War II. And after it was implemented, it stayed
like that, which was like a... like a war measure,
a way to, like an emergency measure, and it stayed
like that for decades. Food was being produced
with lots of fertilizing, heavy machinery, this
green revolution you were talking about, that's
how it was called. And yeah, at the end of the
day, we destroyed very valuable things we had
in the previous food system. Yeah, yeah. We must
remember, however, that the previous food system
that we had wasn't up to the task. We couldn't
produce food for 10 billion people or 8 billion
people with the methods we had before, smallholder
farms, etc. We weren't up to the task. So it
was the failure of that system to scale to the
extent of the population explosion. That required
us to think in new ways, like the Green Revolution,
where we, as you said, we introduced pesticides
and fertilizers and super greens, super seeds,
etc. And we must also realize that the founder
of this movement, the scientist Norman Borlaug,
got the Nobel Peace Prize for inventing the Green
Revolution, essentially. His take on this was
basically, yeah, I hope this can buy us a couple
of decades. And within that time frame, we need
to rebuild our food system into something that,
of course, provides health and sustainability.
But everyone got hooked on this industrial calorie
machine that could produce safe and cheap calories
and just push them out there. That gave rise
to the fast food sector, to various types of
new dishes that we consume in Sweden, for instance.
Low quality, cheap, high availabilities, can
be stored forever. We put ourselves on a grain
diet instead of a green diet. And that has proven
very detrimental. I think what we see now is
that we get it in the neck now. So now we need
to fix another problem. Okay, so we have food.
Now we must make sure that we have food that's
good for us and the planet. And that's the next
green revolution. It's going to be of a similar
magnitude as the previous revolution. But it
seems really hard for us to understand and wrap
our heads around this transformation. And we
must remember that there was a huge debate going
on during the time when we introduced and cemented
this industrial food system. Everyone was, you
know, all these small farms that were forced
to close and people had to sell and move to the
cities. And we saw, you know... Fewer and fewer
farms producing milk or whatever it was. And
there has always been a huge debate about that.
And now I look forward to another type of debate
regarding how we transform or tear down and rebuild,
if you like, the food system of today. So for
me, that has to be fueled with the technologies
and the innovations that we have under our hands
today, much in the same way as we scaled. the
industrial food system that we have today, with
the technologies and innovations we had in the
1960s, we have come further since then. And so
now we can use what's at our disposal right now
and then turn this food system around. And I
think it should just be a positive thing for
everyone, including the current food system players.
I think... However, that we're mentally very,
very reluctant to change things that are so fundamental
and close to us, such as food, that makes it
tricky. But you could also say it's an even more
fun and challenging potential. Our main audience
on this show are chefs and cooks. So what could
you say about, do you think chefs and cooks have
a role that, or they have like a frame of action
within transforming the food system? Or do you
know any cases where this has been the case,
actually? I think this is, you're nailing it
here, Eric, because chefs and food professionals,
those are the people who will shift the planet.
It's not consumers. It's not consumers going
to the retailer and buying new ingredients and
cooking them up at home because regular people
don't know how to do that. If I take a look at
my own home country in Sweden, you guys, you
sit in Spain and the Basque country and everyone
is a super chef there. But in my home country,
people don't like to cook and they cook very
badly. So how do they construct meals? Well,
they take... Dried pasta, boil that up, serve
that together with ready -made meatballs and
a sprinkle of ketchup, a generous sprinkle of
ketchup. That's one of Sweden's favorite dishes,
right? And the other favorite dishes look exactly
like that. It's like taco. Fry up minced meat,
pour a bag of ready -made spices on top of that,
serve it with canned maize, hack some cucumber
and onions, and there you go. Again, open up
a jar of ready -made sauce and top the tortilla
with that one. So, I mean, it's hilarious how
bad people are in the kitchen. And the only way
forward, I guess, is to involve all these chefs
and professionals in the kitchen who can cook.
healthy and sustainable meals for us. So I think
we need to reorganize the food system. That's
one of the key parts of the next green revolution
is reorganizing how we cook and eat food in the
world. And the pros need to step in and the pros
need to step in and they need to use all tools
at their availability, such as machines or novel
ingredients and things only they can make sense
of. And then we perhaps can scale to Well, scale
the next -gen food system. You guys who listen
to this, you are the most important people in
the world. And I think you should take your rightful
position as those most important people in the
world. And you deserve recognition for what the
amazing magic you do every day in your kitchens
and realize that you are the only ones who can
fix this. Here in the show, we've done a couple
of episodes. talking with some players, some
actors that played a role in the New Nordic cuisine
movement. And I was wondering, how did this impact
Sweden? Did it change? What were the changes?
Is it something that you could see, like across
the street, for example, or in the supermarket?
I'd say mostly in the attitude towards food.
And what happened before New Nordic came about
was that we cooked like... french people in sweden
we tried to emulate the french and uh and then
suddenly someone said yeah but do we have anything
to contribute you you must remember the history
of food in sweden or the nordics that's it's
porridge Yeah, as far as I understand, there
was very strong religious constraints, right?
Like it was a sin to have like a super pleasurable
meal. Oh, that too, that too. I'm like, we're
in Protestant territory here. Exactly. But we're
also in the far northern latitudes, so not much
grows here. So it has been a very strong, you
know, milk and meat tradition. And that's why
Swedes still can stand to drink milk, because
we have the necessary enzymes. But it really
isn't a food culture in the sense that you guys
think about it as a food culture. So I'd say
that what happened with New Nordic was that we
liberated ourselves from the constraints, the
French constraints, with the help of innovation.
Suddenly we said, yeah, no, we can innovate.
We can work with what we have. It's not totally
crap, everything. We can find and define a new
type of cuisine that's more... you know, close
to nature, innovative, no limitations really,
seasonal. I mean, it's a lot of the stuff that
we're talking about today as a necessity for
transforming the food system, as opposed to going
back to, so to say, old school French cooking
with sauces and whatever have you, recipes. Yeah,
all the French foundations, yeah. Yeah, the French
foundations, the techniques, the recipes, the
ingredients. So that was very liberating and
it was innovative in a way to be able to free
yourself of the shackles of the old system and
to be able to move ahead. You could basically
say a fusion cooking is, new Nordic cooking is
kind of a fusion cooking because you could suddenly,
you know, take whatever you had out there in
terms of techniques or ingredients and make do
with them and start making interesting new things
happen. And that has liberated, I think, the
mindset of a generation or several generations
of chefs coming after these pioneers, you know,
freeing themselves and saying, yeah, food can
be really interesting. experience not just a
well -tasting dish it's it could be something
else and i think the typical example of this
is really i think we're the best one of the best
examples is the danish restaurant the alchemist
that i think everyone on your show probably has
heard of oh yeah of course and where they serve
this dessert that that that is made partly out
of blood And it comes in the form of, there's
a QR code on the plate. I don't know exactly
how they do it. Some flour through a specific
QR code. I don't know. And then what happens?
People take up their phones to take a picture
of the dish. That's what they always do, right?
Camera eats first. Yeah, exactly. That would
be another way of attacking it. But people take
up their phones. They try to take a picture.
What happens, of course, when you hover a phone
over QR code is that it takes you to a web address.
In this case, the sign -up page for blood donorship
in Denmark. And they have this magnificent conversion
rate. And that is, you know, suddenly placing
food in some sort of societal context. And I
think that's what chefs have started to play
around with. So they're not anymore just people.
doing dishes in the kitchen. They try to be actors
in society. And I also had this discussion with
a Swedish chef called Markus Samuelsson, who
has a great restaurant in New York. Yeah, he
has a Swedish and Nordic restaurant. Before,
Nordic was a thing in New York. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Already plenty, 30 years ago, yeah. Exactly.
Aquavit was his first place, I remember. Yes,
yes, exactly. And when we had this discussion
regarding how COVID When COVID came, New York
was emptied, right? So all the people who could,
they left New York for their summer houses. But
he was there and he realized that, yeah, someone
needs to feed all these first responders, the
nurses, the firemen, the police. And he realized
then that, yeah, no, as a chef, I'm not just
running a restaurant. I'm a community leader.
And he said he felt that was... affecting him
quite a lot in seeing himself as a chef in a
transformed society and i think that is also
how chefs need to see themselves as the players
the actors who transform food now and not just
being no chefs in the restaurant and we've seen
i think also super interesting how chefs go out
of the kitchens and into various types of innovative
positions So, for instance, we have this company
called Endless in the Nordics coming out of what
was Amas, I think it was. Yeah, with Matt Orlando,
yes. Matt Orlando, exactly. So Matt is on board
with Endless with a couple of other guys, and
they make chocolate out of old beer grains. Oh,
yeah, I've heard about the project. Yeah, it's
a fascinating project. It is absolutely a fascinating
project, and they do that based on their expertise
in fermenting. And so suddenly they could take
their chef knowledge and suddenly start to build
products in this case or start attacking one
of the largest problems on this earth, which
is that we will run out of chocolate. But now
we can still have that chocolate experience.
We can save the true chocolate for the chocolate
experience and we can replace chocolate as an
ingredient with the endless stuff. And it's truly
endless because as long as we drink beer, we
can have chocolate. And I think that's a wonderful
prospect. Yes, that sounds amazing. No, no, definitely.
I think I can also think of NotCo. You know this
company in the States? It was originally, I don't
think it can be called a startup anymore. It's
already like a scale -up. And I saw a TED talk
of Matias, the founder of NotCo, like an old
one before it was like the huge thing that is
today. And he was calculating, like the same
talk we had at the beginning. He was talking,
because this is still a big topic, like will
we as humans be able to feed ourselves in the
year 2050? Which is a question that has not answered
yet. But on the study he was talking about, it
said that if we continue eating heavily on animal
protein, the way we're doing today, the possibilities
are around 15 % to 20 % to actually make it.
And if it's using heavily on vegetable -based
products, the possibility was of 100%, which
is... Interesting, right? And I think that also
requires a mind shift because, for example, my
generation and many of the people born, let's
say, in the 80s or 90s, we were raised in a way
where the conception of a dish is like a big
piece of meat and vegetables around and not the
other way around. For example, like the way the
Chinese eat, where they have like a wok of lots
of vegetables and some bacon or some, you know,
like cured. pork or whatever, just to give it
flavor, but not to be the central part of the...
And I think that's not only the healthiest way,
but also the most sustainable way to eat. Definitely.
And I mean, that's also how we've seen some of
the chefs, you know, responding in Sweden too.
We have one that's called Paul Svensson, which
is one of the local heroes. And that's his philosophy,
you know, make veggies the centerpiece of the
plate and meat as some sort of addition aside.
An essential. That's, of course, the way to go.
But then, of course, we need to make sure that
these veggies are super tasty. Of course. And
that's, again, only chefs can do that. People
in their, you know, regular dudes in Sweden,
perhaps, again, not in the Basque country, but
in Sweden, regular people cannot make that happen.
We don't have access to the greens and we don't
have access to the knowledge. So we need some
help in order to do that. And as you say, if
we can do that. conversion from meat to veggies
instead, without sacrificing taste, then we can
save the planet and be healthier. So yeah, it's
a win -win, as they say. I also wanted to ask
you about Sweden Food Tech and the event you're
organizing for September, if you could share
a little bit about that. Sure. So Sweden Food
Tech is a think tank that I lead together with
some colleagues, and we do basically three things.
give people advice on where is food heading,
you know, strategic advice. So not what type
of flavor should we have for Coke next year,
but, you know, the real transformative stuff.
We're always science -based. It's not just speculation.
We talk about the stuff that you can see around
the corner if you have the ability to see around
corners. And, you know, once people then wake
up and say, okay, so I thought I was in the sewage
business, but now I come to realize that I'm
part of the food web. Yes, you are. So who should
I talk to? Who are my new best friends out there?
And I say, yeah, sure, let's connect you to a
couple of those. That could be chefs or entrepreneurs
or scientists or other players out there. You
could turn sewage water into basically anything
with the help of modern technology and some fermentation.
And once people have started to do that, they
rapidly see that, shit, this is a... really large
sector and I can make an imprint here. So suddenly
the food sector grows in all various directions.
And once a year we run something called, it's
nowadays called the Bite Stockholm, bitestockholm
.com. And that is a big show that we do together
with the Stockholm Fairs, where we try to build
a completely new meeting spot for the future
of food. It's basically based on the fact that
we burnt down their old... food trade show. And
so I said, this is shit. This doesn't cut it
anymore. We need to do something about it. And
so we reinvented the Bite Stockholm food meeting
spot. And we poured into this also our own yearly
summit called The Big Meat. So it's going to
be a trade show, a summit, and not the least,
a fantastic test kitchen where we're going to...
test stuff uh you know new ingredients new machinery
new concepts together with some of the best chefs
in the world eric i hope you will come and join
us in the kitchen i will i will make everything
i have in my hands yeah i will make it one way
or the other yeah just see you guys i mean like
that's you know we need to we need to have the
expertise and the The innovation power of the
truest, greatest chefs out there are to make
this. And we try to put them front and center.
So actually, we have the commis in the kitchen.
That will be the venture capitalists and the
buyers. So they will be there chopping onions
and doing the dishes. But learning from the best.
And also, a last question I wanted to make you.
So as I mentioned, our audience are mostly chefs.
Which could you say that are now... chefs that
are doing really interesting stuff in Sweden
that are worth checking their work for someone
who wants to have a first approach to the Swedish
food scene or restaurant scene? Oh my god, you
should have prepared me for this one. There are
several great, so to say, fine dining chefs.
I'd probably take a close look at... Jesse Sommarström,
which is young and she's already hit the world.
And she cooked the Nobel dinner. The Nobel Prize
winners always are invited to a huge, big, fancy
dinner. And she cooked that this year. And she,
for instance, used hydrothermically processed
grains in order to cook a porridge. Where the
processing of the grains make all the nutrients
in the porridge available. She removes the anti
-nutrients from the porridge. And that was a
big coup. She's also helped IKEA to this furniture
store that's blue and yellow coming from Sweden.
That you might have heard of. I've heard about
it, yeah, I think so. And they're big in meatballs.
And she's now constructed a 50 -50 or hybrid
meatball for IKEA. That's going to hit the restaurants
now as well. Okay, super interesting. Yeah, so
she's super cool. Yeah, that is definitely one
of them. I think one of the most fun restaurants
in Stockholm is a restaurant called Punk Real,
which is a fine dining but super punky experience.
Loud, noisy, you know, a lot of smoke, high energy.
loads of alcohol flowing party party party uh
it's it's it's absolutely totally crazy shit
and there you cannot bring in your phones that's
the first thing they snack from you and then
they put them in a in a locked uh that's very
punk definitely no camera no problem totally
agree with you that that's also fun they've expanded
and they're now a chain Like McDonald's that
exists in several countries. That's not so punk,
but okay. That's not so punk, but hey, it works.
Yeah, sure. Amazing. That's it for this week's
episode of Potluck Food Talks. If you like what
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