Knorr’s Future 50 Foods project expands plant-based pledge with 25% increase by 2025

20 Feb 2020 --- One year after Unilever’s largest food brand Knorr unveiled The Future 50 Foods – a report written with WWF detailing plant-based foods that can boost the nutritional value of meals while reducing the environmental impact of its food supply – the brand plans to increase the number of products featured by 25 percent, by 2025. This is a significant commitment, notes Knorr, and comes amid huge dietary shifts toward plant-based eating and sustainability trends that are pushing industry to produce more planet-friendly products.

Beans, pulses, cacti, algae, mushrooms, fruit, root vegetables, leafy greens, nuts, seeds, sprouts and tubers all feature heavily – and there will be more plant-based ingredients added in the coming years as Knorr sharpens its focus on sustainable food. 

“Knorr is committed to building the Future 50 Foods into the future product innovation plans with 25 Future 50 Foods products launching in our top counties in the next two years. Some products will include more widely known ingredients like kale, spinach and lentils, while others will feature less globally known ones like fonio, moringa and mung beans,” Dorothy Shaver, Global Sustainability Lead, Knorr, and registered dietician, tells FoodIngredientsFirst.

“The ambition is to open supply for some new Future 50 Foods by working with our existing and new suppliers and partners. In doing so we will ensure they are grown and sourced sustainably while safeguarding the supply for the local community.”

Algae features in the Future 50 Food report.

Keeping dietary diversity front of mind, The Future 50 Foods Report states the issues the global food system faces and provides a tangible solution to enable widespread change: 50 of the foods we should eat more of to promote a more sustainable global food system. Projects such as this one are changing the way that the F&D industry is transforming itself to lead the way to a more sustainable future, notes Knorr. This is why it is expanding the food within the report. Foods have been selected based on their high nutritional value, relative environmental impact, flavor, accessibility, acceptability and affordability.

“Stay tuned… Knorr will launch products with Future 50 Foods to bring flavors and ease to eating these foods. The ambition is to encourage and enable people everywhere to eat a wide variety of nutritious foods that have less environmental impact,” Shaver continues. “The good news is that 73 percent of global consumers are now happy to change their consumption habits to reduce their environmental impact and 70 percent are looking to reduce their meat consumption. This growing consumer demand is wonderful to see and I hope will act as an important catalyst for change at a large-scale. We’re proud that Future 50 Foods might have played a small part in that growing awareness,” she adds.

Since it’s launch twelve months ago, the project has been backed by NGOs including the World Economic Forum (WEF) and the Food & Land Use Coalition, chefs including Tom Hunt and Pierre Thiam, a champion for one of the Future 50 Foods, the ancient grain fonio, and global companies. This includes foodservice business Sodexo, which has committed to introducing Future 50 Foods ingredients into 5,000 kitchens across workplaces and organizations in the US, France, Belgium and the UK, with plans to roll them out to a further ten countries this year. French retailer Carrefour is also introducing Future 50 Food Stations in its stores with recipe ideas for environmentally-conscious cooking and package-free ingredients dispensers. 

When putting together the plant-based foods for the report, the search for nutrient-dense plants has taken the brand toward ancient grains, heirloom plant varieties, and less commonly cultivated crops. 

What Knorr is doing reflects the significant plant-based trend permeating the F&B industry. This is underscored by Innova Market Insights, which highlighted “The Plant-Based Revolution” as it’s number two trend for 2020. The market researcher also highlights a 59 percent average annual growth in global F&B launches with a “plant-based” claim (CAGR 2014 to 2019).

The Future 50 Foods has been recognized for addressing the UN’s “Zero Hunger” Sustainable Development Goal 2.0, with Knorr invited to address the Food & Land Use Coalition’s event during the UN General Assembly 350 of the world’s most influential chefs have pledged to showcase the wealth of under-utilized plant-based ingredients highlighted by Future 50 Foods in their future menus. 

The Future 50 Foods has also been held up by the World Economic Forum, FOLU (Food & Land Use Coalition) and Chefs’ Manifesto as a force for good in promoting bio and dietary diversity. 

Knorr highlights some examples of how Future 50 Foods is making a positive impact. In Indonesia, the Nutrimenu program with Future 50 Foods at its heart was launched in partnership with the government and local NGOs to tackle major nutrition imbalances in the country. In Mexico, more than 900 teachers have been educated in using Future 50 Foods ingredients to help give 50,000 students the skills to cook nutritious meals with a low environmental footprint for their families. A partnership between Knorr, WWF and smallholder farmers in drought-struck regions in South Africa is seeing more viable and sustainable indigenous Future 50 Foods crops such as fonio and Bambara groundnuts being widely cultivated again. 

These new, more diverse crops will not only be brought into Knorr’s supply chain but will also be leveraged to boost smallholders’ incomes, create a more reliable local food source and significantly reduce the environmental footprint of local food production.

In Germany, a simple switch from beef to lentils (a Future 50 Foods ingredient) in Knorr Bolognese has reduced the product’s CO2 footprint by 83 percent. 

“The depressing global environmental and health challenges faced by humanity today seem to many to be impossible to overcome, but at Knorr we believe that food is the single most powerful way to improve our health and the health of the planet,” says April Redmond, Global Brand VP, Knorr.

“By 2025 we commit to increasing the number of Knorr products featuring Future 50 Foods by 25 percent. Over the next two years, 25 new Future 50 Foods-based products will launch across our top 10 countries, with much of that innovation coming out of the Hive, Unilever’s new €85 million (US$91.8 million) innovation center in the Netherlands.”

Why changes in what we grow and eat are necessary
Knorr notes that over the past century we have increasingly reduced the number of ingredients used in diets; today, fewer than 1 percent of the world’s edible plants are cultivated, with 90 percent of the world’s seed biodiversity lost in the past 100 years, as a result of the commercialization of food systems.

“The way we that humans grow, make and consume food needs to change and it needs to change fast. We currently eat less than 1 percent of the edible plant species available to us and just three grains make up 60 percent of plant-based calories in the entire human diet. As a result, planet and human health are suffering. Global food systems are the biggest driver of nature loss in our world today and around two billion people globally are suffering with micronutrient deficiencies. These can feel like insurmountable challenges, but Knorr believes food is the single most powerful way to improve our health and the health of the planet,” Shaver adds. 

“Future 50 Foods brings alive our strategy of enabling three vital shifts – more vegetables, more variety and more plant-based sources of protein. And while it’s a powerful piece of IP for our brand and for our parent company Unilever, it’s also provides a roadmap for our transformation – it’s informing almost every aspect of our business, from the products we sell, to how we sell them, to the farmers and suppliers we choose to invest in,” she concludes. 

 By Gaynor Selby