In Winter of 2014, I had a very interesting chat with Klaus Mager, an experienced food executive who worked with large multinationals.  He currently runs a consulting services Food with Thought. 

 

I had a chance to chat to him about his thoughts on food and it is quite an interest talking in terms of sustainability and future challenges with food.  See the video here (sound levels are a bit uneven).

 

In his corporate career (spanning nearly 30 years), he designed restaurants and marketed the wholes-selling of food.  After the retired, he decided to start consulting for restaurants and began researching current food issues.

 

He said that he found the process quite an eye-opener as he took courses on Coursera to better understand food issues.

 

I found the talk quite informative and interesting – here are some interesting tidbits that really stood out for me:

 

-Klaus thinks that food sustainability problem is quite complex, there are many causes such as water, population increase and global warming converging at the same time

 

-centralization of agriculture (our current system in North America) is very problematic and can only be temporarily maintained with a deluge of energy-intensive and polluting technical means (fertilizers, herbicides, pesticides)

 

-very significant issues are the depletion and contamination of water and soil erosion

 

-the current global food system is unsustainable and in less than a decade major changes will take place

 

-his most important message is that the population has to be responsible about what they eat – they need to pay attention – this will cause the food industry to react

 

In truth, my writing really is not as eloquent as his talking, so I suggest you check out the video.