According to curators Annelies Hermsen and Chloé Rutzerveld, the supermarket is a fascinating place: “So many people come together. Regardless of age, background education level. It is a representation of society. A place where you see an overview of society and a place where a lot of experiments are already being done.”

This was the main topic around which the Embassy of Food conference revolved. What will the supermarket of the future look like? What will we be eating in 2050? Which foods will be gone?

For this talk, we reflected on those ingredients readily available in supermarkets all around the globe. But what if the climate crisis puts all those foods that we take for granted at stake?

Using our Museum of Endangered Foods, we reflected on the issues around our farming practices, the climate crisis and the complexity of the food system. We also had the pleasure of debating with Gerard van der Bijl, Senior Vice President of Tech at Albert Heijn, about all these challenges and what supermarkets can do to prevent them.

A big shout out as well to the rest of the panelists, from Nadine Bongaerts on her exploration of synthetic meat and all her insights on lab-grown for gras, to Katinka Versendaal and her range of faba-based dairy products, as well Emma van der Leest, from which we learnt not to be afraid of bacteria, fungi and algae in our diet. Learn more about The Embassy of Food Conference here.