System C: The Food System Reimagined

How System C Combines the Best of Taste, Health, and Affordability to Transform Nutrition and Healthcare

We have spent the week talking about systems, so we figured it’s time to start laying out a bit of framework in our thinking.

A Little Prologue

As we exited World War II, the US saw famine as a tool of tyrants to force their will on countries. To reduce conflict, global agriculture, with the help of US technology, boosted agriculture production. By 2010, the global food system achieved calorie parity, producing more calories than needed. Corn went from 20 bushels per acre in 1940 to recently 320 bushels per acre.

In the process, the $1.7T US food system, rich in calories and carbohydrates but weak in nutrition, triggered more than $1.9T in annual health care costs from poor nutrition. We avoided World War III, ended famine, and boosted chronic disease.

From 1945 until today, industry and policy have aligned to drive substantial systematic change. A great deal of good, with eventual consequences.

Food is Health

As we look forward in our effort to improve food and therefore health, h…