Sustainable Food Laboratory

Overview

The Sustainable Food Laboratory (SFL) is a consortium of business, NGO and public sector leaders working together to ensure that the world’s agriculture and food supply meets the needs of the present while increasing the global capacity to meet the needs of the future.

Mission

To accelerate the shift of sustainable food from niche to mainstream.

Vision: to ensure that all actors from farm to fork have livable incomes; soil fertility is maintained and improved; water and biodiversity are protected; energy use and waste are within the earth’s capacity to sustain forever.

Program

In the next fifty years, our planet’s population will grow from 6 billion to 9 billion people. At the same time, fisheries are over-fished, soil is degrading at an alarming rate, the planet is becoming warmer, millions of farmers and farm workers live in poverty, and food industry leaders do not know how we will meet future needs. Believing that we can only effect market transformation if we work together, we convene a global network of leaders from businesses, NGOs, government, and organizations of farmers, farm workers and consumers. The diversity of the SFL membership is its strength. We facilitate innovation, foster networks of relationships across traditional food system divides, harmonize principles for sustainable supply chains, assist members in implementing principles, aggregate impact and disseminate information about our activities. In the US, Food Lab members are asking bold questions about how their current business practices need to change to alleviate poverty in producer communities. In Brazil, producers are finding innovative ways to produce food and preserve resources for future generations. Municipalities in Europe and the US are creating incentives for school and hospital food service providers to value quality over price.

Impact

Initiatives are improving livelihoods of farm families in Central America; reducing pesticide use in crops; influencing investors and policy makers in biofuels; making businesses and NGOs more effective in promoting sustainability; promoting fair trade and leading to the creation of purchasing standards that will value quality over price.

Countries of Operation

Brazil, United States, Guatemala, Dominican Republic, France, Italy, Belgium, Iceland, Netherlands, United Kingdom, Mexico