A Year With Foodprint Nordic
And what a year it was! On May 19 last year, a breezy sunny spring day, we launched Foodprint Nordic in the garden of AMASS restaurant in Copenhagen. The location, Refshaleøen has in the past years become home for innovation; many of its residents are forerunners in sustainability and the examples they set are strongly shaping the Nordic food scene.
Our ambitions are no less than that either. Cindie Christiansen, our Founder and Executive Director has big dreams, and envision the Nordic countries as the leading region in growing nutrient-dense food in healthy fertile soil, as one of the solution for many of the challenges our environment faces today. In this wonderful world, Farmers, Chefs and whom we like to call Eaters are all working together for a regenerative and delicious future. Does it sound like a dream?
The answer is undeniably yes. But fortunately there are countless organisations, companies, scientists, farmers, chefs, thinkers and doers, and even more passionate individuals worldwide, who demand an immediate change and many of them are devoted to a tireless pursuit of actually making it happen. We at Foodprint Nordic are immensely proud of calling ourselves a part of this movement and proud of the existing collaborations we have created the last year. We believe that collaborations, courage and brave decisions will create the future we dream of.
Together with the Board of Directors, lead by Trine Ostergaard as Board Chair, Cindie and the growing team have started turning the dream into reality. We believe in global action and launched a not-for-profit organisation where restaurants, businesses and keen individuals can chose one of our models that best suits them to contribute to local regenerative projects through Foodprint Nordic.
Within only one year, we have successfully committed to 10 regenerative farming projects starting in Denmark and Sweden, and partnered up with an increasing number of renowned and leading restaurants and food businesses, with the latest addition of a Finnish restaurant crowning the list. We have also just accepted a seat at a steering committee on an exciting Finnish agroforestry project.
In the meantime, we have moved into the office building of our founding member, Simple Feast on the aforementioned Refshaleøen and became neighbours with our members La Banchina and AMASS.
Despite of some challenges caused by the pandemic, we organised activities, held a fundraising event with acclaimed guests and partners from the culinary world and collected data from soil measurements done in collaboration with the University of Copenhagen.
Our early efforts have not gone unnoticed. We appeared in the Financial Times article “Inside food’s new Silicon Valley” featuring forerunners of the Copenhagen food scene that we are honoured to belong to. Moreover, Cindie got the opportunity to speak at industry talks, conferences and gave an interview to the Danish newspaper, Politiken.
However, Foodprint Nordic could never have come this far without our skilled and inspiring Board of Directors who, with their insight and expertise, set direction and guide us on the way towards achieving our goals.
We also have big plans for the year ahead! The launch of this new website marks a major step towards opening up to the entire Nordic region, giving power to the people as well as businesses and offering easy models to join our journey of changing the way we grow food. Are you with us?
