Geert Maesmans: “Meeting through EIT Food can create a more balanced dialogue and a greater sense of equality between partners.”

Across initiatives such as the Biotech Alliance, Think and Do Tanks and Landscape of Navarra 360, has anything changed the way Cargill thinks about its role in food system transformation?

For us, EIT Food has confirmed that the areas we're shifting towards and exploring are the right ones.

It has also helped us find allies - people who share the same objective but approach it differently. That has been an important learning: realising, "Wait a minute, there's another way of thinking about this."

We want to engage with startups, academic partners and customers to make sure the changes the food system needs can scale and reach the market, so they can have an impact on farms and farmers, soil health, and the nutrition and health of consumers.

What makes the partnership with EIT Food valuable? 

For us, the strength is in the diversity of what EIT Food brings together.

At the education level, we've worked with and hosted students, helping them understand areas such as design thinking and the economics behind successful innovation.

We've also worked with startups. They challenge our thinking and bring technologies that we wouldn't automatically think of ourselves. In turn, we can bring market insight and experience in scaling.

Conferences, exchanges and participation in Think Tanks give us another way to contribute, share perspectives and build a mutual understanding of what is feasible and urgent.

A particularly important aspect is what I would call the safe space that EIT Food provides. In a one-to-one discussion, there can be a perception of, "Here's the big multinational talking to the small startup." Meeting through EIT Food can create a more balanced dialogue and a greater sense of equality between partners.

Why is Cargill involved in both the Biotech Alliance and Resilient Agriculture Landscapes, and how do you see the connection between them?

Whenever you talk about biotech, you need feed streams and fermentation substrates. The majority of those substrates come from agriculture.

We talk about the "100% rule". If you work with an agricultural crop, typically only a fraction goes directly into human food. The question is how you use 100% of it.

That applies from the farmer to the biotechnology company, and from the biotechnology company to the consumer. One part of the system feeds another. The better you can optimise those connections, the easier it becomes to scale the benefits across Europe.

It's systems thinking: how do you make the different parts work together coherently? It's all connected. 

We'd like to continue on the road we’re taking now: building on what we're doing and becoming even more flexible and agile in bringing people together to do something new.

We also need to consider how the political and European landscape is changing, and how we need to work within new priorities and funding mechanisms.

If we want to move towards greater strategic autonomy for Europe, the agricultural, the food and the biotech space need to come much closer together. That's an evolution we need to encourage.

What would you say to other industry organisations considering partnering with EIT Food? 

I'd tell them to consider it. Being part of EIT Food gives you access to a much wider network and helps you find partners with whom you can build the value chains of the future.

I'd also tell them to look carefully at which network is the best fit for them. We all have a role to play in the value chain, and EIT Food is a place where those different roles can come together.