When is food processing regenerative?

1 + 1 = 2

1 + 1 will never be 3.

Or, will it?

Mathematically it can’t.

But, in nature, 1 + 1 often becomes (way) more than 2. Putting the right things together can create all sorts of symbiosis.

🐄 Adding cows to a field of grass adds manure. They also chop the grass efficiently and trample the ground. If managed well, a field that’s grazed by cows produces more grass, than there would have been without the cows.

🫐 Place a berry shrub underneath a tree and it will grow faster than in the wide open.

🌾Adding cover crops to a piece of land doesn’t decrease the yield of the grains planted afterwards, but often increases it.

It’s these ‘collaborations’ that allow us to regenerate soils and ecosystems, as opposed to extracting from them. It’s what allows 1+1 to become 3, or more. And not just one time, but continuously.

It’s what farms who aim for regeneration do all the time, amongst other by using a few key practices (based on those from Kiss the Ground):

• Understand context: no farm, no person is the same, so every situation is different and requires a different way of management
• Minimize soil disturbance: soil is alive, so try to disturb it as little as possible
• Maintain living roots year-round: roots hold onto the soil, prevent erosion and transport nutrients down in to the microbes that live underneath
• Keep soil covered: to protect the soil underneath
• Integrate livestock: bring animals and plants together (again)
• Maximize biodiversity: grow a wide variety of plants and animal species reducing sensitivity for pests and diseases

But of course a food system is bigger than a farm. And these practices don’t apply to food factories, retailers, and many of the other actors in our food system.

As a food scientist, mostly working with food once it’s been harvested, I’m wondering what makes tthe subsequent processing regenerative?

How can we make 1 + 1 = 3 in food processing?

Let’s take a humble apple as an example. The farmer has down her best to create healthy soil, and has applied a range of regenerative practices. Taking into account her local context and collaborations.

Now, that apple is heading your way, as an apple sauce producer. What do you have to do to also be regenerative. To also help improve the system as a whole instead of just extracting from it.

Buy regenerative, otherwise business as usual

If you’d make your regular apple sauce from that apple without changing anything else, would you consider that a regenerative product?

In other words, is merely sourcing from regenerative farms enough?

“We (aka the food processors) will let the farmers do the hard work for us. We don’t have to move or adjust our ways of working. Let’s just ensure purchasing buys the right products, and we’re ‘regenerative’.”

Or not?

In my opinion, regeneration is about more than just buying the from right farms. So in my opinion, no, this is not a regenerative apple sauce.

Then, what is? I’m not 100% sure either, but here’s a few things I think food processors should at the very least consider.

Use a (wider) variety of crops

Regenerative agriculture aims to ‘maximize biodiversity’ and ‘maintain living roots year round’. To create healthy soil farmers will rotate different crops. This keeps pests and diseases away, helps bind nitrogen, and more. Or they might grow different varieties of the same crops, for the same reason.

So if a food processor wants to be regenerative, you almost can’t just use one crop or one very specific variety.

If farmers aim for biodiversity, so should we as food processors (and consumers, but that’s another story…).

Of course, many food processors are at least somewhat specialized. You might be a baker, a sauce maker or a canner. We could also collaborate more with other producers to use a more diverse group of crops or varieties.

So what could processors do?

Develop products using a wider variety of ingredients

• eg. breads with different flours, not just wheat, also rye, buckwheat, even legume flours.
• eg. not just using Elstar apples for your apple sauce, but a wide variety of apples
• A concrete example: black bean brownies, or Simple Mills who use a lot of differnt ingredients

Challenge(s)

Every extra ingredient needs extra storage space, extra dosing equipment, extra piping, extra manpower. More often than not recipes are simplified to save on costs. Adding a wider variety of crops may make it less efficient.

What do we need more of?

• Suppliers of ‘flours’ made of a variety of ingredients (to keep internal processes simple)?
• More expertise and knowledge on how to use these different ingredients.

Uses ‘whole’ crops wherever possible

In my food chemistry classes at university I learned a ton about the chemical structure of carrageenans. But I never learned about using seaweed, the source from which carrageenan is extracted.

Similarly, when developing products I’ve often looked at pea proteins. However, never did we really ask the question whether we could use the whole pea.

As food scientists we’ve become very good at working with pure ingredients. We extract the proteins from peas, we extract colors from beetroots, we take starches out of potatoes, the carrageenans from seaweed.

Understandably so. Food is ‘annoying’ to work with. It’s a natural product, and, every batch or harvest will be just a little bit different. And factories don’t like this. Factories want consistency, producing the same product with the same specs day-in day-out.

But whole foods contain a lot more (micro)nutrients. They’re often better for people to eat and contain a ton of natural flavor. So let’s try using more whole foods.

Specifically this could look like

• High protein products made with pea/legume flours instead of just their proteins
• More whole wheat baked products. It’s easy to find a whole wheat bread, not so much whole wheat cake or cookies, even though it’s definitely possible to bake delicious whole wheat varieties.
• A concrete example: whole wheat pancakes

Challenge(s)

• Using whole foods is typically more expensive. There’s a reason strawberry yogurt doesn’t contain that much strawberries, and contains strawberry flavors.
• How to improve/handle stability? Whole wheat flour turns rancid more quickly than white flour.

What we need more of?

• Classes (at university/college or for those working) on processing whole foods. How to manage shelf life, stability and consistency?
• Knowledge and research, most (scientific) research is ingredient focused (also because it’s a lot easier to replicate tests with a pure ingredient as opposed to the variable whole foods).
• Conveniently packaged whole foods. This sounds contradictory, but think of good fruit purees.

Processing for nutrition

When developing a new product we make a nutrition data panel. We know the carbohydrates, fats and proteins in our products. It’s legally required, and by now something that everyone expects. But, in my experience, we’ve never looked at those other micronutrients. Could we buy strawberries with more vitamins? Could we buy meat with more beneficial omega fats?

We do add vitamins or minerals to food. But forget to look at what’s inherently there already, or could be there naturally.

If we want to become regenerative food processors, I feel there’s something we should do here as well. It might be related to sourcing ingredients with naturally high amounts, but also in processing produce in such a way that we don’t destroy what’s in there already.

Specifically this could look like:

• Using whole wheat flours instead of white ones
• Sourcing high vitamin fruits for fruit-based baby foods

Challenge(s)

• It’s expensive to analyze all these micronutrients and the data is very often incomplete.

What do we need more of?

• Insights into nutritional profiles (I made a tiny start!)
• Even better understanding of the impact of food processing on nutrient density
• Knowledge on how to improve nutrient density through processing. An often mentioned example: fermentation.

Process which can handle (more) variability

Regenerative produce is often more variable. Whether that’s because of smaller batch sizes, different varieties of the same crop to optimize for the local soil conditions, it’s often a fact, especially if also using more whole foods.

Factories though are designed for consistency day-in-day-out. And whereas that’s pretty normal for a car factory, it’s actually not that normal for a food factory.

How can we design more ‘organic’, ‘natural’ food factories? Once which are efficient and help in keeping food affordable, but also ones which can move along with seasons and harvests.

I’m not yet sure how this would look like. Maybe new technology can play a role? Or, maybe, just humans?

Quality & certification systems which encourage and allow flexibility

Many buyers require food processors to have quality certification systems, such as BRC, FSSC or IFS. Understandably, especially for large scale operations. It’s a way to build trust.

But, these systems, in my experience at least, aren’t built for smaller, more flexible production sites. Sites where daily adjustments might be necessary. Where deviating from certain protocols is required regularly.

Collaboration

And lastly, a less technical aspect.

As food processors we need to work together more across the chain. How can we help farmers to flourish while also flourshing ourselves? I’m sure there are many opportunities here if we decide to work together.

Looking at the system holistically is crucial. With European regulations requiring reporting on scope 1, 2 and 3 data, so also taking into account other steps in the production process, this may just start to happen (we can all be hopeful can’t we ;-)?

Your unique context – People, culture, and more

And then there are a lot of other aspects to take into account. What would work well in your environment?

Are you in a water scarce environment? Then your processing may need to look different than an area with ample water.

How can you work together with other local companies? Whether that’s a unique skill people in your region have, certain ways of working, how do you fit in? Can you create meaningful, well-paying jobs?

There’s more, but those start to apply to everyone in the supply chain, not specifically the food processors, so I’ll stop there :-).

So food processors, there’s enough to do. Where do we start? What did I miss (as I’m sure I missed things)? What should we improve upon?