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URBAN TRIGGER AGENCY

Close Up of Corn Field

Living

Agriculture

Urban Trigger Group | Spring 2020

Students: Ingvild Kvikne, Andrea Wolstad, Andreas Nielsen, 

Natacha Amdal, Nikolay Hjertaas
Lead Supervisors: Prof. Ole Möystad, Jørgen H. Skatland, Erik Frydenlund Hofsbro

This is the story of how today's competence management and food waste in Norway, totaling over 700 000 metric tons, accounting for more than 2 400 000 tons of released CO² - also produced a 40 billion NOK window of opportunity. 

Welcome to 

Trøndelag & Levanger.

Trøndelag is a large county in Norway. It accounts for more than 20% of Norway's food production, while housing 8.7% of its population. In our investigations we will zoom in on Levanger, situated in the heart of the Trøndelag, holding some of the most fertile land in the area.

In recent years key fertile land has been converted and regulated into plots for housing construction. Such action, along with the value-chain of today’s food industry in the area, indicates a competence gap within the sphere of decision-making. In this case study we therefore explore how competence investment could create new value. Let us begin by exploring the value-chain connected to Levanger’s natural resources, and the unfolding value processing of food from the farm to our dinner table.

Welcome to 

Trøndelag & Levanger.

Trøndelag county accounts for more than 20% of Norway's food production, while housing 8.7% of its population. In the investigations the team zoomed in on Levanger, situated in the heart of the Trøndelag, holding some of the most fertile land in the area.

In recent years key fertile land has been converted and regulated into plots for housing construction. Such action, along with the value-chain of today’s food industry in the area, indicates a competence gap within the sphere of decision-making. In this case study we therefore explore how competence investment could create new value. Let us begin by exploring the value-chain connected to Levanger’s natural resources, and the unfolding value processing of food from the farm to our dinner table.

Ready for disruption?

Understanding the current value chain

In order to better understand how the distance from the farm to our dinner table has expanded, we collected the path of various products in today's value chain as a metro map. Here we can clearly see how the product moves through the various stages - production, processing, storage and distribution, chains, and lastly the point of sale - before it reaches the consumer.
 

This not only shows how distanced we have become from the agricultural production stage, but it also indicates an important element regarding consumer influence and competence.

Why does the system matter? Let's look at the average increase of added costs, for each link in the current value chain. Let's look at vegetables:

4%+

Producing the food:

The cost of producing 1kg carrots at the farm averages 11.7,- NOK. at the farmer.

30%+

Cleaning & Preparation:

The cost of 1kg carrots, after the first stage of cleaning and preparation averages 20.6,- NOK

66%+

Packing, distribution, storage, and transportation:

The cost of 1kg carrots, within the current value chain now averages 33.9,- NOK at the consumer.

The current system leaves a staggering 65% potential and window of opportunity for urban intervention. This is found between the farmer's production cost at just over 11,- NOK, and the current consumer price - at the end of the current value chain - where one kilogram now costs 33,- NOK. 

 

Looking to new systemic interventions with a more intelligent value-chain likely has a multitude of benefits with respect to factors ranging from food-quality to CO²-emissions, all the while being vastly more competitive in terms of end-user pricing.

 

A key find was the inverted positioning of competence versus decision-making power for food production. In other words, those with the highest competence on food production, had the lowest ability to effect changes to the current food production value chain. To capitalize on the inherent weakness of the current system, a driving change for value creation will be competence development.

 

To simulate and model a robust strategy we built a Competence Landscape Model. This was needed to firstly understand today’s competence landscape, and as a method to re-organize the competence where it could be used to make actionable and effective change in the urban system.

 

Every built element in Levanger was mapped and abstracted to nodes on a map. Each node received a vertical y-axis value, representing the competence at this location. The map also included layers of infrastructure, soil-quality, municipality building regulation plans, along with other key factors. Nodes were categorized into producers, consumers, institutions, retail sellers, and others. The model builds on an economical method from NIFU (Nordic institute for studies of innovation, research and education), which helps to measure marginal returns from the competence investments, through treating this as a build-up of knowledge over time. The model also builds credibility through the difference-in-difference method, which in short compares the effect through of a group-1 and group-2 test. In the latter test, group-1 invests, and group-2 does not. Thereafter the difference is measured throughout the current phases and investments.

As we can see, the current data on food waste indicates that today's system not only requires more production than is necessary, but it also continually builds a large climate footprint. In all parts of the value chain food is thrown away for various reasons. This ranges from distributors who throw away raw materials that don't look good enough, to consumer dinners that end up in the bin. Food waste is therefore a very low-hanging fruit - and a potential that lies latent within Levanger. These are goods that have already been produced, but are not utilized, neither for large-scale industrial circular economy nor other capital gains activities. If these unused products are not sold, the sum will be rejected. This means that the waste can benefit both the producer, industry agents and society in the form of capital that frees up funds for the farmer, reduces the climate footprint, and increases the quality of the goods.

Lending this potential from the future offers a sustainable and profitable opportunity today. We believe it is a new urban cash-flow architecture yet to activated.

 

Triggering the latent potential in food waste, utilizing the window of opportunity in today’s value-chain, and crucially adding the strategically guided competence investment, the Levanger urban system can sustainably create a large increase in economical-, ecological- and social value. In the full report and study, four strategic phases have been outlined, each step building on the next. We believe this strategy offers sustainable new urban value, generating less CO², less food waste, and higher food quality at lower competitive consumer prices.

- Urban Trigger Group 2022

Can waste be a solution? Let's briefly look at how today's value-chain builds opportunity for action. 

Edible food waste - A trigger for change.

701 000 tons of edible food

The share volume of the current system's edible food waste.

40 000 000 000,- NOK

Economic value of food waste.

2 402 000 tons of CO²

Environmental footprint of food waste. 

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