What if the shift to plant-based food alternatives didn’t just reduce the
well-documented polluting, resource-depleting impacts of industrial agriculture,
but also helped transform the agricultural system into one that was truly
regenerative?
That is what trailblazing, Singapore-based startup WhatIF
Foods is aiming to lead on — through the use of
novel plant ingredients to create healthy, nutritious, regenerative alternatives
to processed and animal-based food products.
“At every step of our journey, [we’re] asking ourselves what a better vision of
what the future of food could be,” WhatIF co-founder and CEO Christoph
Langwallner told
Sustainable Brands®. “We are looking at the way the industry produces
food and are on a mission to change it one category at a time.”
Over the past decade, plant-based meat and dairy alternatives have seen massive
amounts of
investment — a
trend that Boston Consulting Group recently
hailed
as potentially our best opportunity for slowing climate change. Their promise is
simple: Reduce the well-documented, harmful impacts of industrial
meat and
dairy
agriculture — which is responsible for 14
percent of global
greenhouse gas emissions, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture
Organization, as well as serious impacts on water and air
quality.
Shifting to more plant-based
diets
and providing consumers with more sustainable protein
options
are seen as key in achieving global sustainability goals.
the exciting potential of cultivated, fermented and plant-based protein innovation
Join us as Aleph Farms, the Better Meat Co, the Good Food Institute and Plantible Foods discuss the latest advancements in cultivated, plant-based, and fermentation-derived proteins — and how incorporating alternative proteins can help brands significantly reduce environmental impacts, while conserving natural resources — Tuesday, Oct. 15 at SB'24 San Diego.
“If we’re going to stave off the worst effects of climate change, we must tackle
the oversize carbon pollution footprint of meat,” Courtney Lindwall, a
writer with the Natural Resources Defense Council, wrote in a blog
post. “Not
only is animal agriculture resource-intensive and polluting; but clearing land
that previously held forest and other vegetation means releasing stored carbon
into the environment and destroying diverse ecosystems.”
Oatly, Impossible
Foods,
Quorn
and other frontrunners in the plant-based food space mainly focus on using
technology and innovation to create products that mimic meat and dairy as much
as possible. But they’re doing this by focusing on a limited number of
industrial ingredients — such as soy, oats, pea and mushroom protein, and sunflower oil.
With its lineup of plant-based milks and noodles, WhatIF is taking a different
approach: Instead of just using technology to create the most animal-like
products, the company is creating a whole new supply chain around healthy,
regenerative products that taste good while also rebuilding agricultural systems
and soil health — through the use of novel ingredients mostly
ignored in global food systems.
“Our business model is different than other food companies in the sense that
we're working from the ground up, literally, to build a fair and just value
chain,” Langwallner says.
Image credit: WhatIF Foods
One of WhatIF’s main ingredients is the Bambara
groundnut
— a protein-rich legume, similar in taste to a peanut, grown primarily in
Africa. It not only has a rich nutritional profile, but regenerative
qualities — as it fixes nitrogen, can be grown in poor-quality soils, and can be
a cover
crop
for shade-loving plants such as coffee and
cacao.
WhatIF Foods is working to source Bambara groundnuts (or
BamNuts) from West Africa;
in Ghana, the company has started an outreach program, in partnership with
the Switzerland-based Pond Foundation, to measure the impact of the crop
on soil health and farming communities. In this, they are cognizant of a key
tenet of successful forays into regenerative
agriculture
— local context.
“What works, or is applicable, in West Africa may not work in Asia,”
Langwallner explains. “Every regenerative system needs to be tailored to the
local needs. We will thus be flexible in our approach, and will work closely and
directly with our supplying farmers and their supporting networks to develop
regenerative practices that make sense for where they are.”
This, of course, is challenging. Most food companies just source from the same
few wholesalers, who control most global food commodities. Creating a new supply
chain is hard and often expensive; but for true systems change, it's necessary.
So far, the initial results look promising — and WhatIF is hopeful in the
potential for BamNuts to play a key role in improving soil health in various
regions.
“There is a huge potential for farmers to grow more BamNuts and restore hundreds
of thousands of hectares of lands in Africa,” he asserts.
Despite the BamNut’s potential, one ingredient can’t fix our unsustainable
agricultural system on its own — another signal of the need to diversify and bring in
new ingredients, methods and techniques to help us sustainably feed the world
and restore global soil health.
“If I had a magic wand with the power to change the entire world, I would change
the fact that instead of 12 crops, thousands of species — predominantly plants —
feed humanity. But of course, one company cannot solve these issues alone. We
will need thousands of companies to take similar approaches,” Langwallner says.
WhatIf Foods’ model stands out in the emerging plant-based foods sector and
shows that if brands really want to make a difference, it's not enough to just
be less harmful than industrial meat. It’s time to think — and act — bigger.
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Media, Campaign and Research Consultant
Nithin is a freelance writer who focuses on global economic, and environmental issues with an aim at building channels of communication and collaboration around common challenges.
Published Oct 12, 2022 8am EDT / 5am PDT / 1pm BST / 2pm CEST