28-05-2025
Should we give weight loss jabs to children?
I have seen the future of food. And some of you won't like it. On a research trip to the Netherlands last week, along with the fellow partners of my firm, Bramble, I took a speedboat tour of the port of Rotterdam. One of the most awesome sights was the so-called 'Innocent Blender' – a vast smoothie-making fortress, box-shaped and silver – glinting over the water. This is where the British-based, Coca-Cola-owned company makes its 'tasty little drinks'. The factory location makes sense: most of Europe's imported fruit comes via Rotterdam. Massive tankers – 600ft long and filled with 40,000 tons of chilled orange juice from Brazil – move through constantly. The Blender is completely electric, runs on renewable energy and uses robots to purée, bottle and package. There isn't anything wrong with this, even if it doesn't quite chime with Innocent's cutesy image. The global food system is stretched to capacity, struggling to cope with global instability and the extreme weather of climate change. As a species, we need to harness cutting-edge science if we are to feed ten billion people (the projected population of 2060), while also giving some land back to the ecosystems we've been chewing through for decades.
On our second day, we visited Wageningen University and Research – the epicentre of food system innovation. There we were shown a pill containing a miniaturised computer which, as it passes through your gut, sends live readings to your phone: temperature, acidity, location and transit time. The next model will take fluid samples at precise locations, providing a full readout of your microbiome. You then pass it in the usual fashion, give it a rinse – and hand it on to the next person.
Vertical farms, growing vegetables under LED lights, without sun or soil, are familiar.
