Why Food Mountain?
A more sustainable, more inclusive and healthier food system
How we have set up our food system is not tenable in the long term. This opinion is now widely shared. Global food chains will have to become more sustainable, more inclusive and healthier. And that at a time when uncertainties are the rule rather than the exception in many areas of our existence.
Many companies, governments, knowledge institutions, NGOs and individuals are working to make our food system more forward-looking every day. An inhibiting factor in many initiatives is the limitation that, by definition, lies in each individual organisation. It is often impossible to find all the substantive expertise, creativity, ambition, relationships and other necessary resources within one organisation. Looking beyond the boundaries of individual organisations increases the possibilities for innovation considerably. Food Mountain is specialised in developing innovative partnerships between multiple partners.
Food Mountain is a platform that focuses on initiating, thinking along and participating in initiatives that contribute to a more sustainable, more inclusive and healthier food system. On this website, you will find initiatives that illustrate how Food Mountain can support you. We invite you to share your ideas in this area with us. Maybe we can do something for each other!
The role of the Food Mountain platform depends on what the initiative needs. For example, we can limit our contribution to thinking along about ambitions, national or international partner searches, or it can extend into the implementation.
The concept
Flexibility and adaptability are keywords in a time of constant change and uncertainty. Food Mountain strongly believes that every initiative requires its own partnership. Concepts such as ecosystems, clusters and innovation districts are mostly about exploiting cooperation potential. Sometimes, well-known parties can make a difference; in other cases, the “hidden gem” is the key to success. Food Mountain initiates such partnerships but also likes to contribute to initiatives that can use new thinking or implementation power to realise their dream. In most cases, there is a three-stage process:
Sharpen your ambition
Every successful collaboration starts with ambition. Companies, knowledge centres, educational institutions and governments can, for example, aim to “get more” from the economic potential in a certain region. Another example is a partnership between companies that all attach great importance to making their business more sustainable. Many ambitions are initially not sufficiently clear or so large that it is too difficult to translate them into concrete steps. It all starts with redefining that ambition to ensure that sufficient focus, inspiration and sense of reality are present.
Making up a team of partners
Every successful ecosystem has numerous players, each of which has its own role to play. Finding the right partners and determining who could (or should) play which role is crucial. Cross-border cooperation offers more possibilities on the one hand, but on the other hand, introduces an extra degree of difficulty. Subsequently, building a powerful partnership is a subtle game of finding sufficient commonality and added value, business acumen and social click between people. This applies to both temporary connections and more permanent initiatives.
Implementing
Clearly described ambitions and a strong partnership are necessary preconditions for success. But then it also has to be put into practice. Implementation requires specific competencies. Managing a partnership differs on essential points from managing an individual organisation. It requires extra attention when it comes to the following issues: formulating the target group (for whom do we do it?), developing service packages (do’s and don’ts within the partnership), managing stakeholders and performance (when do we do it right?). Food Mountain contributes to this in various ways in the form of coaching, exploring the possibilities or co-ownership of the initiative. The guiding principle here is that the role fits in with what you need to achieve success.
