The planet-friendly food innovations that just bagged a $2 million prize

What could you do with $1 million? It would go a long way to advancing that game-changing idea. How about $2 million? That’s the amount that has just been handed to Greenwave, a regenerative sea farming project, and B4Plastics, which makes biodegradable fishing nets, in a prize for sustainable food innovations.

The Food Planet Prize, which started out last year, focuses on finding those initiatives that have the potential to revolutionise the way that we produce, process and consume food – including initiatives that, without a timely injection of cash, may never fulfil their real potential. The prize is funded by philanthropist Curt Bergfors, the owner of Swedish burger chain Max.

“Whatever way you look at it – whether it is in terms of climate or biodiversity – food production is incredibly problematic,” says Magnus Nilsson, Michelin starred chef and co-chair of the Food Planet Prize judging panel. “As opposed to other sectors, we can’t just stop eating. We have to feed ourselves. And in the future, there will be more people to feed.”

That’s why the foundation behind the prize has doubled the amount up for grabs, making it the largest prize in sustainability. “The whole point of the Food Planet Prize is to help those initiatives that have true potential to change the world,” stresses Nilsson.

What made Greenwave and B4Plastics stand out from a field of close to 400 entrants? “Greenwave has the potential to touch thousands of people due to its focus on training,” says Nilsson.

Former fisherman turned kelp farmer, Bren Smith, has an ambition to train 10,000 regenerative farmers to grow sea greens and shellfish, while restoring our marine ecosystem. Greenwave has a waiting list of 8,000 people in the US alone. Not all will become farmers. Smith is committed to “taking the energy” of those people, who come from all walks of life, and “finding the best fit for them” in the ocean economy as hatchery technicians, producers of kelp products or farmers who help him to “seed the movement”. “If you can get 10,000 engaged individuals, it creates a life of its own,” says Smith, who is keen to inject that life into deprived or indigenous communities beyond the US, starting in New Zealand and Chile; there is already interest from another 100 countries.

B4Plastics is also on the verge of scale-up, notes Nilsson. Founded by bio-engineer Stefaan De Wildeman after realising that plastics were “infesting his life”, B4Plastics has a vision to create plastics “with an expiry date”, starting with fishing gear. The company has developed a new biopolymer for use in fishing nets, which won’t fragment into microplastics if lost overboard. Instead, they break down into minerals and virtually disappear. Through research the company is starting to understand how to control that process under different ecological conditions. De Wildeman says: “In the next three to five years, we hope to be able to manipulate the rate of biodegradation.”

Smith believes there is a dawning realisation of the importance of our oceans. As farming is increasingly pushed out to sea by drought and a decline in soil health, we have to be mindful of how we establish ocean farming in a way that “builds in sustainability and social justice from the bottom up”. De Wildeman commented that we are only just beginning to understand the role our oceans play and “if we destabilise our oceans, then we also further destabilise life on land”.

Already engaged in the search for the 2022 winner, Nilsson and the organisers of the prize are committed to ensuring that doesn’t happen. “I’d like to look back in five years’ time and see that some of the people we have rewarded have had a global impact.”

Though early days, the prize is delivering on these high ambitions. Last year’s four $1 million prize winners are all scaling up rapidly. Future Feed, which created seaweed-based animal feed that helps cut ruminant emissions from cows, launched its first lower-emission steaks in August. The Land Institute has established new research hubs to deepen knowledge of perennial crops that mimic natural processes and promote healthy soils. Blue Ventures has launched the Transform Bottom Trawling coalition to tackle the destruction that fishing is doing to our oceans.

Beyond the prize money, is the recognition that the Food Planet Prize brings, says De Wildeman. “Feeling appreciated for doing something positive is a powerful thing.”

Main photo of kelp harvest: Imagine China
Stefaan De Wildeman photo courtesy of B4Plastics
Magnus Nilsson photo courtesy of Food Planet Prize