Sustainable Food Laboratory

The W.K. Kellogg Foundation, a partner of the Sustainable Food Lab since its inception, has sharpened the focus of its food-related grant-making. Many Sustainable Food Lab members and partners attended the Seventh Annual Food and Society Meeting this past month where participants discussed the program’s goals.

Kellogg’s Food and Society initiative, with an allocation of over $50 million over the next several years, has a goal of increasing the proportion of “Good Food” in the U.S. from a currently estimated 1.8 percent to at least 10 percent. The initiative defines “Good Food” as food that is “healthy, green, fair and affordable.” According to Program Director Ricardo Salvador, the foundation will support projects that can “catalyze a shift in the food system, measured by purchasing dollars.”

The vision for this shift is “a food system that provides all communities safe and healthy food grown in a manner that protects the environment and adds economic and social value to rural and urban communities.”

The Food Lab has a lot to contribute towards this goal because its member companies have collective food-related revenues in US markets of approximately $115 billion (or 12 percent of US food sales).