The food industry produces most of the food ingredients, food products, meals and drinks we consume on a day-to-day basis. This industry has organized our food chain in such a professional way that it has become perfectly normal to buy food at the supermarket. Most of the harvesting and production, refining and preparation has been done for us, enabling us to enjoy the final product, without wondering where it came from and whether it will be available for us tomorrow or the day after tomorrow.

Feeding society impacts large areas of farming land and uses huge amounts of fertilizer, biotic resources (crops and cattle), water and energy. With the world population expected to reach 9 billion people by 2050, food security is becoming a serious issue. At the present rate, the overall ecological footprint of food production and consumption will go beyond sustainable levels. In looking for solutions, small, medium and large companies are starting to collaborate on sustainability initiatives and generate value chain innovations. A group of eight large Dutch multinationals in particular, called the Dutch Sustainable Growth Coalition, has made it very clear how important sustainability is for companies who still want to be in business five years from now.

This chapter presents four ambitious strategies towards sustainable food production and consumption. The example of HEINEKEN breweries shows the radical steps that the company took to improve the efficiency of water and energy use throughout the entire value chain, including packaging and transport. The brewery is a front runner, not only by virtue of its water strategy – it reduced its water footprint by 25% in 2020 – but also because it encourages farmers both in the Netherlands and abroad to practice sustainable malting barley farming.

The FrieslandCampina example teaches us that a sustainable business strategy is ‘actually a way of making the business model robust against all the global challenges we are facing, such as the scarcity of natural resources and the high cost of fossil fuels.’ In close cooperation with farmers, employees and customers, the company takes a leading role in safeguarding sustainability throughout the entire dairy chain, providing a basis for interesting new business opportunities.