True Value of Food
A powerful aid to business decision-making
Published: September 15, 2021
The True Value of Food – a powerful aid to business decision-making, guides business leaders in accounting for the real value of food in their decisions and action. Written with the support of management consultancy BCG, this paper distils knowledge from interviews with leading WBCSD members and key partners such as Bayer, Danone, DSM, Nestlé, OCP, Olam, Rabobank, & Syngenta. It helps companies to identify the direct and indirect natural, social and economic impacts of a food product from farm to fork – otherwise known as the True Value of Food (TVoF).
The paper uses working examples of food products to help business to understand what is meant by true value accounting – realizing the value of people and nature that is embedded in food products- including carbon emissions, air pollution, obesity, poverty and food waste.
This publication outlines the True Value of Food as a key guide to help business navigate the business transformations needed from sourcing through to partnerships. Seven criteria, outlined in the report, will help business to move from defining a strong pilot project and activating it, through to scaling this across their supply chain:
- leadership commitment,
- alignment of KPIs and metrics,
- well thought out incentives,
- direct feedback loops,
- identification of key points of influence,
- planning for scale,
- and multi-stakeholder working, with industry peers, policymakers, and civil society.
This paper supports the work of the True Value Coalition, a partnership launching at the United Nations Food Systems Summit 2021 (UNFSS).
Individual and collective actions to recognize and operationalize the true value of food are now needed to change food systems for the better, to move from borrowing from coming generations to investing in a shared future.
