Being announced as one of fifty Best Small Businesses globally by the United Nations last night was amazing. It was great reinforcement of our focus of supporting a changing food system through changing diets. This award is really for all the people that are buying Food nation products, supplying Food Nation products and supporting our little business. It is definitely hard yakka but knowing that every purchase contributes towards healthier people and a healthier planet keeps us excited and keeps us going everyday. Hopefully eating our Magic Mince, Amaze Balls Super Sausies and Happy Patties etc. can be the happiest and easiest path to a more sustainable food system.
Food Nation had the opportunity to participate in the UN Food Systems Summit preparatory work alongside thousands of other SME’s from around the world looking in our case, at ways to support more sustainable consumption and production. What is unmissable is the passion and commitment these nimble little companies and founders have to positively impacting their communities through their efforts.
The imperative set by the 2021 United Nations Food Systems Summit being held in November in New York is that our food systems must become more nourishing, sustainable, equitable and resilient. Impressively, small-and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) constitute at least half the food system globally, making them fundamental to efforts to transform the ways we produce and consume our food. Each country is different, but SMEs usually make up over 90% of businesses in the agri-food sector, create half the sector’s economic value, provide more than half its jobs, and handle more than half the food consumed.
Despite their importance to the future of food, small businesses are rarely heard on the international stage. This Best Small Business: Good Food for All competition, which included a survey, captured SME ambition and needs. These are presented in a report, “A Small Business Agenda for the UN Food Systems Summit”, that calls for the world to rally behind SMEs as the vanguard of a food revolution.
With a conducive business environment, positive incentives, and greater influence, SMEs can deliver a more nourishing, sustainable, equitable and resilient food system. As part of the announcement ceremony held in conjunction with the UN Food Systems Pre-Summit, other small businesses around the world will be encouraged to join in the call to do their part in this decade of action by signing a pledge. Please sign up if you feel this is you.
Thank you again to everyone who buys Food Nation and shares the dream, who supplies Food Nation and who supports and sells Food Nation – none of this would be possible without you. Kia ora e te whanau