Marije Vogelzang:I think that the food industry is more than only food, food production. I think it's all linked to each other. So the whole food system is one big link. It's also linked to corruption, it's also linked to politics. It's also linked to how healthy our world is. So, it's not, I don't see it as a kind of distant part of other things. I think we are all also the human—us, the human beings—we are part of the food industry as well, because we consume.
I was kind of scared to proceed in food, but then once you start to really dive into it then you see that it's just the most important material in the world.
I'm Marije Vogelzang and I'm an Eating Designer, so I try to design from the act of eating. So it's about food production, about rituals of food; it's about food and communication, it’s about food and culture, it's about the effect that consumerism has on the planet. It's a very broad theme, and I think that's much more interesting.
I think there are a lot of problems in the whole food system, and it's not only the productional part and the way it's distributed around the world and equality in food. I think it's also our own mentality towards… our own attitude towards food.
What I see is that this food industry—every player in this industry is a specialist. So they know exactly in their little field how to make the best cheese, or how to get the most potatoes from a field. So they know exactly how to do that, but because they're a specialist, it's really hard to look at all the other people that are in the same field or in the same chain. A lot of people don't know—a lot of farmers don’t know—what really happens to the product when they actually sell it to the next person.
And I think that's the reason why it's really hard to change, because people don't really have an overview. It's a very complicated thing. And I think I'm not sure if designers can solve all of this. But I think that the other part is making people more aware of the true value of food. What the effect could be of your designs could be also that you actually have people consuming in a different way, or you create new rituals that give meaning to your life and use food for that, or you could design a system where people treat food waste in a different way.
Claudy Jongstra:I mean, how do we look and have a perception of the food industry and the waste in the food industry and leftovers? How can we re-use them in a way that we make new recipes?
I am Claudy Jongstra, and the last fifteen years I have been working, mainly with wool, but the last couple of years I've also been very much involved in producing my own crops for the colours I work with.
The crops we grow are [based] on the principles of biodynamic farming, which is very important to us because it means that you change not only yearly, but you make a plan for seven years; and also it’s so beautiful that in one year, some of the beds, they can rest.
It's also relevant because a lot of the fertility of the soil will increase even more, so taking that method very seriously means that it's more complex. Because also when you harvest, not always, you harvest when you think, “Oh yeah, my agenda allows to harvest now,” but no. You have to wait for the moon, and to be very alert and observe—you have to be really a good observer.
The quality of the colours are incredible, and I think it has a lot to do with fertility of the soil, giving a lot of good energy to the crops. So it's really essential for how we work.
Outside we will build gardens with the community and then we will grow vegetables. We use [them] also to eat, but also to make colours out of them. And we will work with restaurants that have waste materials.
It's more to feel awareness about where things come from, but also how can you use it in a very different ways. I think this is a beautiful display of the diversity and the quality of nature.
Marion Verbrucken: Well at the moment, the current food chain is very shaky. It's not really necessarily healthy—it's manipulated. And I think design can look at all these kind of issues and see, “Okay, what is a better way of producing food? What system is better to use?”
I think design can really play a role in even democratizing this whole food chain. So that people know where the food comes from, how it's made, where it's made, by whom it's made.
Marion Verbrucken, and I'm working in Philips for 33 years and mainly on innovative front end innovation projects.
Bertrand Rigot: Bertrand Rigot, I'm also working on front end innovation projects for now 23 years.
Marion Verbrucken: City farming has many different forms. You can have top roofs, greenhouses on roofs, you see that also [in] supermarkets now. But what we mean by city farming in Philips Lighting, is growing vegetables in a controlled environment. Meaning you have everything under control. Your water, your CO2, your temperature, the humidity, and the light. There's no natural light, but [it’s] all done by artificial light. This to ensure everything is free [from] pesticides, and also a very sustainable solution.
Bertrand Rigot: Because in this century, and sooner than we think, we're going to hit a point where the arable land—the surface of arable land—is not sufficient for the planet. So the only way is to go vertical.
Marion Verbrucken: We call it city farming also because of the urbanization trend of… everybody will be more situated and living around cities. So that will be very dense. How to feed those dense population areas...
Bertrand Rigot: It is about not producing our food from 2000km from people's homes, but locally. So city farming will be best placed to play a role by being close to people.
Marion Verbrucken: And also I think it will change even, the from farm to food. It will change completely. It will make it shorter, closer, healthier, fresher, etc.
Gert Jan Hageman: After nine years of growing vegetables for De Kas and I know how difficult it is. It's very romantic. It gave me far more respect for ingredients. Far more. Because I know how tough it is to get even something out of soil. So yeah, it changed me a lot. And especially, perhaps respect, for what grows. And that you have to treat it with respect and think about what you do with it.
I'm Gert Jan Hageman. Gert. Jan. Hageman. I'm the proud owner, but also the grower of this restaurant, and it's called De Kas.
I had a dream of having my own restaurant at a greenhouse; growing my own vegetables, following the seasons, very local. No menu anymore, only one menu—no choice, share your plates, grow in the city, forget about most of the meat and fish, etc. And that's I think what makes De Kas different from the rest.
I think that the freshness of our ingredients are very important. We harvest every morning. I harvest every morning. At around 10 o'clock, it's here. Chefs start to work. We make a lunch and a dinner out of it. End of the day, it's all gone. Next day, we start all over again.
We have a greenhouse over here where we... it's kind of [a] tryout for the new varieties for the next season. And we always show them, and I'm surprised by the way they're surprised how something grows, you know. Like that a cucumber grows on a plant, or a melon, or a tomato. And that there's not only one red tomato but there's 500 varieties. And so when you say “Well, do you think they disconnect from food?”, I would say yes.
We're organic as much as possible and that's already very difficult. On the other hand, what Philips does, or modern agriculture, [to] get as much as possible from a plant is interesting as well. Using hybrids, and less diseases, less pesticide.
I like a lot the traditional way, but as I'm Dutch and a grower, you know you can’t close your eyes for all these modern things because they are all marvelous. So I like both.
I notice everyday we have an everyday growing number of people who wants to visit us. So I would say for us, the future is bright, and I would say [the same] for everybody in the food business. We have money to buy it. We have money for quality. We'd read the newspaper. We see television. It's always about food and quality and environment so I would say we're heading in the right direction.
Marije Vogelzang: It's fascinating, because it's very polarized right now. It's either completely organic, biodynamic, fertile soil idea, and it's either high tech. But I think in the future these will merge. And I think this is just a matter of time [before] people start to see that high tech can actually produce really sustainable food. So I think one is not excluding the other at all.
The thing with technology is that you can design this technology, but then still humans have to use it. So you also have to design for humans to integrate into their habits, or to integrate it into their culture, or integrate it into their lives in a way. So I think that is something that misses a lot.
So people, when they think about the future of food, they think about all the possibilities technically. And I'm sure there's a lot possible, but then what do you really do with it, and do people really use it? I'm not against traditions, but I'm also pro-future in a different direction. I think that is why the Netherlands—and I see that in the whole Northern European sphere—food culture is not very developed, but food and design has a really good atmosphere here, to grow.
So now I've been doing this about eighteen years and I see all around the world people are starting to also work with food and design, and I think that's a really good thing. I think we need more people, we need to be more diverse, we need to be more trained and we need to be strong together. Because this discipline is growing—it's just happening, and you can see that it also gets the recognition that it could have, or that it should have. And it also gets more relevant, and I think the relevance of food as a subject is more understood by people. So people are really working on actual issues much more. But then we are with many [others], so we can really make a difference.