Big players across industry and academia have come together to boost Switzerland’s reputation as a powerhouse for food and nutrition innovation. Feeding 9 billion people with healthy and sustainable food: that’s the colossal challenge for humanity in the next few decades. With its 8 million inhabitants and an agriculture sector that occupies less than 1% of Gross Domestic Product, Switzerland looks like a dwarf in the face of big agriculture players like the United States, China, Brazil and Germany. However, it has considerable assets on its side in the field of agri-food technologies. “Switzerland is home to a unique innovation ecosystem in food and nutrition,” argues Fathi Derder, the coordinator of the Swiss Food & Nutrition Valley, a project launched on the occasion of the most recent World Economic Forum. The project is backed by Nestlé, canton Vaud in western Switzerland, the School of Hospitality and the Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL). Attracting the ...
