The Generational Thinkers: Chloé Rutzerveld

In the quiet fields near Eindhoven lies a village. There’s a buzz at the fishmonger on the square. A few streets further up lives Chloé Rutzerveld. Not your average villager, she’s researching a future in which extinct animal species might reappear on our plates, protein is sourced from bacteria, and fermented plants can be fully developed and prepared to meet our desired flavour, texture, and nutritional value. Yet when the door opens, none of that is immediately apparent. Rutzerveld is warmly and practically welcoming, styled with socks in her slippers, and preceded by her parents’ two dachshunds, who greet us enthusiastically. It’s a sunny day, and we take a seat in the backyard.

Chloé Rutzerveld grew up in Limburg, where, as a young adult, she started her first successful venture: balloon twisting and cake decorating at children’s parties. Imagination and the art of transformation were part of her life early on, later complemented by her interest in science. Rutzerveld is now a future food designer, inspirational speaker, and former creative lead of the Embassy of Food at World Design Embassies (now: Coalitions of the Dutch Design Foundation). In her various roles, she questions, explores, and designs new ways of food production and consumption.

Her bites of the future can be found in the ‘Space Farming’ exhibition at the Evoluon in Eindhoven. One example is Culinair Cellulair,  an interactive installation where visitors can design a futuristic dish based on cells—using cells from (extinct or exotic) animals, plants, or fungi, without traditional farming methods. The digital installation guides you through the whole process, and your final creation is displayed on a holographic screen. While fictional in this installation, the technologies already exist. Would you eat this dish? What does it say about our current food system? The installation is designed as an accessible form of science communication—to introduce a broad audience to emerging food technologies, visualize the unknown, and prompt ethical discussions.

Between hands, teeth, and AI

Upstairs in her home is Rutzerveld’s studio. Prototypes and moulds are stacked in boxes; tools and notes cover the tabletop; a sculpted lion’s snout hangs on the wall. She’s currently working on a sculpture of a deep-sea anglerfish hanging above the table, gently swaying. The modelling process is intensive—replicating skin and teeth in such detail pushes her limits, both technically and in her sense of patience. Clay, silicone, plaster, and epoxy are just a few materials she uses to bring hyperrealistic models to life. For Rutzerveld, model making is a vital tool for sparking imagination—and not just in physical, handmade form.

“Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a fantastic and useful medium for co-creation,” she says. “I’ve used AI to help imagine new types of food. Especially with something as intimate as food, it’s hard to create something new that looks edible and tasty without copying what we already know.” For the Culinair Cellulair project, AI co-created visual interpretations of future dishes, which she then transformed into physical hyperrealistic models.

Cellular boundaries

The Netherlands. Land of massive livestock herds and endless monocultures. A country that has often swapped its beloved potatoes for pasta these days —because we are so exotic —but still, preferably with meat. Even though vegetarian and vegan lifestyles are becoming mainstream, the average Dutch person still eats meat five times a week, according to CBS. Sitting down at 6 p.m. for a meat-inclusive meal; birthdays celebrated in a circle with cake and cheese on sticks—our culture is inextricably linked to food.

Here, in Rutzerveld’s garden with the two dachshunds, we sip tea and coffee over a generous slice of banana cake. Chloé asks: “What if we decouple the functional nourishment of our bodies—the nutrients—from the sensory experience of food: taste, smell, texture, colour, preparation, and cultural practices? Maybe then we’d be more open to alternative production methods for high-quality ingredients, and we could add the sensory experience back in afterwards. And yes, that’s a pragmatic way of looking at it. That’s not how we usually do things.”

The banana cake is divided into uneven pieces and, staying true to Dutch culture, then further shared so everyone gets a fair share. In the future, we might just be sharing a piece of lab-grown meat or carrying our own personalized protein formulations tailored to our individual needs. The technology exists to develop a sustainable and healthy food system. The Netherlands leads in innovation, with constant patents and investments in biotechnology and the protein transition.

“But we’re also incredibly divided,” Rutzerveld notes. “We’re leading in innovation, but terribly behind in implementation and regulation.” Because a large part of Dutch income comes from the export of meat, dairy, and agricultural products, introducing lab-based alternatives to the market is politically fraught—especially if these products have new forms, flavours, or textures. Large, conservative companies dominate, and any scaling has to be profitable within two years.

Let’s zoom in on cultivated meat. Real meat, but grown from animal cells fed with proteins, sugars, and fats. “The biggest interest in implementing these innovations comes from regions with unstable food supplies or heavy dependence on imports,” Rutzerveld says. “Think of food deserts in the U.S., Israel, and Singapore. Singapore was the first country to approve cultivated meat for the market.” But even there, the cultivated meat revolution is stalling. Scaling is hard, making it difficult to create an affordable, truly sustainable product. That’s why producers are now experimenting with plant-based ingredients. The latest hybrid products contain just 3% animal cells—closely resembling supermarket items like soy-based ‘chick’n chunks’.

“What I find fascinating is how often new foods end up mimicking things we already know. How long will we keep doing that?” she asks. Her frustration is palpable. “I’ve been working on these topics for over 12 years and I just keep hitting the same wall. Everyone in the field is willing to share knowledge—whether it’s cellular agriculture or precision fermentation—but when it comes to implementing new ingredient forms that don’t imitate animal products or aren’t integrated into existing ones, they drop out.”

Evolution in our own hands

We meet Rutzerveld at a special moment—she’s 14 weeks pregnant. Which has had a strange effect on her taste perception. “I normally eat very healthily. But vegetables? I couldn’t even look at or smell them during the first trimester!” Naturally, the conversation soon turns toward scientific wormholes this triggered. “Did you know many animals can’t eat at all during pregnancy? Snakes don’t eat during the entire gestation period. Octopuses stop eating right after giving birth and die soon after. Despite their intelligence, this gives them no chance to pass on culture or evolve.”

For snakes, octopuses, and pregnant people repelled by food, it would be handy if the body could generate nutrients on its own. And that’s not so far-fetched. Many animals—fish, amphibians, and certain birds—have a gene that lets them produce their own vitamin C. Early primates had this gene too, but as they moved to fruit-rich environments, it became unnecessary and broke down. What if we could reprogram our DNA with new code to convert simple glucose into everything we need?

What if, instead of modifying food, we adapted ourselves? That was the question behind Rutzerveld’s project Etende Buizen (Digesting Tubes), which presented three scenarios involving bodily modifications. One asks: what if we added genetic functions to synthesize all essential nutrients ourselves?

The Food Mafia

Whether modifying our DNA is technically possible cannot be separated from ethical concerns or cultural acceptance. How far are we willing to go for a sustainable food system? “The technical solution can’t exist without a cultural one,” Rutzerveld affirms. “People would never accept a purely functional body and diet. And imagine if the Netherlands only allowed functional food—then you’ve crossed a line. Maybe we’d get a food mafia smuggling illegal meat, potatoes, chocolate, and other ‘delicacies’.” That dystopian angle, she finds fascinating.

It’s important to explore these extremes as thought exercises. If we imagine the ‘functional human’ is fully developed, it implies new rituals must emerge. “Nothing connects people like food; human culture is practically built around it,” says Rutzerveld. “To move toward a fully functional and sustainable relationship with food, we must make space for new rituals. Maybe not with food as we know it, but through other sensory experiences—AR, VR, scent, sound.” These exaggerated visions show us what paths to pursue—or avoid. Rutzerveld doesn’t believe in a single future. “I believe in parallel futures—coexisting possibilities,” she states.

Live within your limits, imagine beyond them

Let’s go back 100 years—what would Rutzerveld have done? She answers without hesitation: “I’d have been one of the first women to study medicine. And if not that, I’d have figured out how things work in some other way—and questioned them. That probably would’ve made some people mad, but the things everyone agrees on just don’t pique my interest.”

If she could bring something back from the past, it would be the principle of living within your means—using only what you need—and the sense of community, where skills were more equally valued. “We need both—people who build and people who think. That influencers make so much money these days is totally absurd,” she says.

She emphasises: “Designers have a crucial role in reshaping values for the future.” That’s why today, Rutzerveld could only ever have been a designer—someone who provokes, questions, and inspires through design. “It’s about the usefulness of design! Designers often aren’t on company or government payrolls, so they’re less restricted by politics and rules. Design gives imagination a real, tangible role in societal change.”

Space Farming on earth

Although we design our systems to be as efficient as possible, we’re actually maintaining an incredibly inefficient system—just in the most efficient way possible. According to the Dutch Dairy Association, almost two-thirds of Dutch milk production is destined for export. Our livestock population is enormous, and methane emissions heavily contribute to the climate crisis.

So it’s no surprise the functional human is seeking better functions. Wageningen University reports that selective breeding could cut cow methane emissions by 25% by 2050. But is that really the solution? “There’s a huge gap between what we say matters as citizens and what we actually do as consumers,” Rutzerveld observes. We might develop new technologies but still feed the unsustainable system through overconsumption and export.

“The truly functional person in the functional city uses what they produce and is part of the whole chain,” says Rutzerveld. “Generated heat could fuel fermentation processes; our waste could fertilize the crops we eat. A closed-loop system, a small system.” She draws a comparison to space travel: “Space is a unique and crucial inspiration. Living in space demands an efficient, sustainable system with minimal resources. Many innovations—computers, phones, even shoe insoles—originated in space before coming to Earth.”

Fittingly, these examples are part of the current Space Farming exhibition. After visiting, you might wonder: Will we soon have a bioreactor in our kitchen, converting CO₂ into dinner?