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- Should designers really be meddling in food production and food distribution systems?
- How could designers work with food retailers and producers to encourage sustainable food transportation?
- What could designers do to enhance the way we interact with our food and increase our understanding of where it comes from?
- What else can designers do to help encourage ethical food production?
- Where else can we get inspired about new thinking on redesigning food production systems?
Nina Belk
Zest Innovation
As part of Dott 07's Urban Farming Project we explored ways we might create more long term, sustainable food systems within the urban landscape. Working with the people of Middlesbrough, we created a really transparent soil-to-plate experience – a three part project designed to bring the act of growing food out of the hidden gardens of the allotments and into the public realm.
The design industry is perfectly placed to support new streamlined and consumer-friendly ways to create healthy towns and cities. In Middlesbrough, environmental regeneration, healthy eating, culture and spatial planning were subsumed in to a single, popular process and narrative.
Whilst I totally applaud the research into sustainable food production and distribution I cannot help thinking that we need to acknowledge the huge input already made by the growers and producers themselves in establishing their own farmers markets all over the UK without any help from 'designers'. I think the real issue is the consumer's relationship with food and the demand for non-seasonal and exotic produce, 24 hours, delivered to your door, ready cooked and 'not just food but supermarket food'. We need a paradigm shift in the way we eat.
