Food design, education and a world of ideas with Menno Stoffelsen
The World Design Embassies use the power of design in the development of new perspectives and steps to take for societal challenges. In open collaborations, the embassies work with partners and designers on the future. The Embassy of Food speculates on the supermarket of the future, discovering how we can design more sustainable, fairer and healthier alternatives to the food we eat. This year working with the students at TU/e. Guided by Menno Stoffelsen, teacher of Industrial Design, alongside food futurist Chloé Rutzerveld. The students experimented with food design, from concept development to product design, some of which will be presented at this year’s Dutch Design Week. We caught up with Stoffelsen to discuss the process.
The task? To design for the supermarket of 2050. An open-ended design question that gave the freedom to explore what students felt was most relevant for our future foods. Stoffelsen mentioned ‘the self-directed approach is always encouraged by TU/e’ which means the students learn through making, training, practising and presenting. Their diverse backgrounds also meant the discussion was rich and varied, always key when cultivating fresh ideas for food.
Working together towards common goals
The design process involved working with the requirements of the client, in this case, World Design Embassies – Embassy of Food. Sessions were met with other businesses within the industry, such as Albert Heijn and Beneficial Microbes consultancy. These conversations with industry insiders illustrated the importance of collaboration in order to work towards shared goals. Through collaboration, design is used as a tool to create the food futures we actually want. Whether that be through foods for personalized health or introducing consumer awareness.
Diverse eating cultures
Students brought their traditional food cultures to the table while experimenting with future foods. Susanna Ceccarelli drew upon her Italian roots to explore what new methods can be used with cellular agriculture. Stoffelsen highlighted how ‘her project became a merging of new technology with traditional food cultures. What is the shape and structure? How does the texture feel?’ How can we utilize current in vitro meat processes to alter the scaffolding of a food? In doing so, Susanna was able to incorporate the important aesthetics of foods to create something not only sustainable, but desirable.
We want our food to look good, as well as taste good. Diya Samit, a student from India brought the flavors from the East into her research. Diya investigated the value of spice in our future food. Asking how we can produce spice sustainably? And how can we move towards a future of spice that is more about growing specific qualities. She combined production technologies with modified fungi elevating the journey of spice towards a more desirable future food destination. The collaboration with students reveals how our food cultures are so intertwined and through the stories, ideas and innovations we can develop a menu for tomorrow’s taste buds that is good for our health, and good for the planet too.
Placing design front and centre
Stoffelsen stated how this process ‘shows food is a vehicle of design. Yet, 10 years ago, food design was unheard of.’ The food we eat and the way we source it has been designed ever since the first seed that humans sewed. What we eat is an integral part of how we shape our future. Which is why it is so crucial to design food, food processes and the systems that it travels through. Therefore it is vital for organizations to collaborate with incentives such as the Embassy of Food, where design is key. For Stoffelsen, ‘if you want to learn, you must surround yourself with people who think differently. Design opens up the world around us. There is a world of ideas’ and only through such collaborations can these ideas come into fruition.’