Description
n recent years, entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley and beyond have beendeveloping a range of novel foods – so-called FoodTech innovation – with the aim to transform the production and consumption of food. Examples of
recent FoodTech innovation include plant-based milks and meat
alternatives, cellular meats, produce grown in vertical farms and insect-
based foods. In this talk I explore how entrepreneurs make FoodTech
innovation valuable for venture capital investors who financially support
FoodTech start-ups. I trace the financial logic guiding these high stakes
investments, examining how it shapes which innovations receive funding
and which food futures are realised. My analysis builds on previous
scholarship attending to assetization (e.g., Birch 2019, Muniesa et al.
2017), valuation studies (e.g., Dussauge et al. 2015; Kornberger et al.,
2015) and the political economy of novel foods (e.g., Wurgaft 2020,
Sexton 2020, Fairbairn et al. 2022). I argue that an ‘assetization’ (Birch and
Muniesa 2020) of FoodTech innovation is taking place: that food
innovation is being turned into an asset which can be controlled, traded and
capitalized as a (future) revenue stream. Using fieldwork data, I illustrate
how FoodTech innovations are made valuable through sustainability
framings. I also reflect on what is meant by sustainability in relation to
FoodTech innovations, drawing on field notes, interviews and documentary
evidence collected for my ‘valuography’ (Dussauge et al. 2015) of
FoodTech innovation, to be published as the monograph Venture Food.
Through this, I show how the financial logic guiding FoodTech
investments and the assetization of novel food require the
continuous practical accomplishment of FoodTech’s valuation as a
‘sustainable innovation’.
| Period | 6 Jun 2024 |
|---|---|
| Event title | Danish Association for Science and Technology Studies Conference 2024: Elegies of waste, surplus, and excess |
| Event type | Conference |
| Location | Lyngby, DenmarkShow on map |
| Degree of Recognition | International |