Scaling of Food System Innovations through Sustainable Business in the Agriculture, Food, and Forestry Industries

Dear Colleagues,

In view of the global prevalence of hunger, malnutrition, and diet-related diseases in addition to the projected demographic changes in world population, the sustainable provision of sufficient quantities of safe, healthy, and nutritious food is a key global challenge. At the same time, intensive agricultural production causes water pollution and soil degradation, contributes to climate change, and is partly responsible for the loss of biodiversity and global forest cover. To make the global food systems more sustainable, a variety of technological, organizational, and social innovations are currently being developed and experimented at various levels. Examples of such innovations include, but are not limited to, resource-saving technologies in the production, processing, and consumption of agricultural raw materials and food products such as ‘vertical farming’, ‘smart agriculture’, or ‘agriculture 4.0’ applications; the use of algae, insects, or non-timber forest products (NTFP) as novel sources of natural nutrients, dyes, flavors, and functional food ingredients; innovative logistics concepts along agro-food supply chains that reduce post-harvest losses and facilitate recovery and recycling of nutrients and energy; or social impact-oriented business models of food entrepreneurs, community food gardens, and similar initiatives. These innovations have the potential to help attain global food security and nutrition objectives while simultaneously fostering opportunities for smallholder producers, agri-food entrepreneurs, and the development of rural areas in addition to conserving the environment.

However, while many of these initiatives inherently operate at the local to regional levels, a considerable proportion remain small and face a variety of challenges in scaling up their business models, operations, and impacts. Improving understanding of the structural constraints that currently prevent such initiatives from spreading more rapidly and gaining critical mass as well as showcasing successful examples of such initiatives can advance the sustainable transformation of global food systems.

We therefore invite empirical, theoretical, or conceptual contributions that investigate the challenges that individual entrepreneurs, cooperatives, community-based enterprises, or investor-owned firms operating in the formal or informal agro-food and forestry sectors are currently facing when attempting to scale up food system innovations. In addition to analyzing the challenges that these enterprises encounter, manuscripts should also investigate solutions appropriate for overcoming these limitations, which can allow sustainable businesses to proliferate in the agro-food and adjacent industries. Original research, literature reviews, meta-analyses, or case studies can be submitted that use quantitative, qualitative or mixed-methods research approaches and employ a variety of theoretical angles. Contributions are welcome that study these topics at multiple levels, from an individual enterprise to the entire industry level, and which represent a diversity of functional perspectives including but not limited to strategic management, logistics and supply chain management, marketing, financing, or regulatory affairs.

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Prof. Dr. Dietrich Darr
Prof. Dr. Patrick Van Damme
Guest Editors

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• food system transformation
• processing industry
• agro-food sector
• firm growth
• business model innovation
• new product development
• sustainable value creation
• SME
• entrepreneurship