Grassroots is a two-year collaborative project in which start-ups, designers, researchers and knowledge partners work together on the food transition. Following an Open Call, designers Marije Vogelzang, Katja Gruijters and Meta van Drunen were selected. They are now working within three Minimum Viable Ecosystems (MVEs) around three agro-startups, exploring how design power can help promising agrifood innovations grow into strong ecosystems with lasting societal impact.

In short:

Designers: Amy Goris (Greenberry), Anna Kozera en Kate Spiering en Asia (Ideate)
Collaboration between: Wageningen University & Research (WUR), Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University (RSM), Scale-up Practitioners, In4Art en Dutch Design Foundation (DDF)
Lab Manager: Janne Spork
Theme: agrofood

v.l.n.r. Katja Gruijters, Marije Vogelzang en Meta van Drunen
This project is part of the Ontwerpkracht & Transities (Design Power & Transitions) programme, funded through the PPS-i resources of the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs via TKI CLICKNL.

The Dutch food system faces major challenges. While a growing number of start-ups are developing innovative solutions, turning these into lasting impact remains difficult. This requires not only new products and technologies, but also strong collaborations and ecosystems.

Grassroots has therefore developed three Minimum Viable Ecosystems (MVEs) around agrifood start-ups: small ecosystems in which different parties work together to create value. Knowledge institutions, researchers, creative partners and designers jointly explore what is needed to take innovations further. Wageningen University & Research (WUR) provides the scientific foundation and impact evaluation, while Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University (RSM) contributes expertise in entrepreneurship and ecosystem innovation. Scale-up Practitioners brings expertise in MVE methodology and ecosystem development. In4Art facilitates the innovation labs and supports the creative partners throughout the process. Dutch Design Foundation (DDF) contributes its expertise in design and societal transitions and facilitates collaboration, communication and the presentation of results during Dutch Design Week (DDW).

By bringing these different perspectives together, Grassroots explores how ecosystems around agrifood start-ups can grow, what role design power can play in this process and how this approach could also be applied to other circular innovations.

From start-up to ecosystem

A Minimum Viable Ecosystem (MVE) is the smallest possible configuration of people, organisations and activities in which value is created collectively. Its different components depend on one another: together, they can achieve something that none of the parties could accomplish alone.

Within Grassroots, each MVE starts with an existing agrifood start-up. Together with partners and designers, the project explores which relationships and collaborations can strengthen the ecosystem and what role design power can play in this process.

Marije Vogelzang, Katja Gruijters and Meta van Drunen have been selected for the three MVEs. Each brings a distinct perspective on the food transition, rooted in their own design practice.

Food stays Food: Revaluing Residual Streams

Food stays Food centres on the question: what role can residual streams, in this case brewer’s spent grain, play in a sustainable food system?

Initiator MaGie Creations works to repurpose residual streams from the food chain as valuable ingredients for human consumption. The challenge is not only to process these streams technically, but also to redefine their value. How do you change the perception of a resource that is often seen as waste or a by-product?

Food designer Katja Gruijters brings more than 25 years of experience in revaluing ingredients and food streams that are generally considered waste. Through her work, she shifts perceptions by creating experiences. Using form, taste, ritual and storytelling, she makes the value of these resources visible and tangible.

Within Grassroots, she is working with MaGie Creations and the other MVE partners to explore how brewer’s spent grain can evolve from a residual stream into a valuable element that connects different actors within a new ecosystem.

Katja Gruijters
“Katja Gruijters shows that nothing needs to go to waste if we can rediscover why something has value. She knows how to shift perceptions around residual streams and give new meaning to ingredients that would otherwise be considered waste.”
The Grassroots Consortium

Marketplace for Alternative Ingredients: The Future of Grass

The MVE Marketplace for Alternative Ingredients starts with the question: what role can grass play in a sustainable food system for animals, people and nature?

Grassa explores how the full nutritional value of grass can be utilised. By pressing, heating and filtering grass, high-quality ingredients for people and animals can be produced, while the remaining fibre can still be used as livestock feed. In this way, grass can help close nutrient cycles and make better use of locally available resources.

But technology alone is not enough. If grass is to take on a new role in our food system, this also requires a shift in perception, behaviour and culture. What does it mean to consider grass as food for people? What value do we assign to it?

Food designer Marije Vogelzang was selected for her ability to make complex food systems visible and tangible. Her work focuses not on food itself, but on people: our emotions, habits and cultural patterns.

Her starting point is deliberately provocative: why should grass be seen as a substitute at all? By approaching grass as a product with its own cultural and sensory significance, space emerges for a different perspective on the future of food.

Marije Vogelzang
“The transition towards a different food system requires not only new ingredients, but also a shift in how we think about food. Marije Vogelzang explores how meaning, culture and experience can help give grass a place and value of its own.”
The Grassroots Consortium

Healthy Food Landscapes: Connecting City, Countryside and Food

The third MVE, Healthy Food Landscapes, explores how farmers and communities can be involved in a new approach to agriculture and landscape that strengthens biodiversity, soil health and local food production.

Initiator Circlefarming works to develop local, diverse and plant-based food production around densely populated areas. The ambition is not only to support farmers in the transition to regenerative agriculture, but also to reconnect communities with their food.

Designer Meta van Drunen sees urban and rural areas as one interconnected food landscape. Working at the intersection of urban and rural development, she connects spatial development, agriculture and social cohesion. Her own experience as a farmer and her network of farmers and initiatives in the Achterhoek region also bring the challenge directly into practice.

Within this MVE, she explores how food connection spaces can emerge: places where regenerative agriculture, local food production and social interaction come together. Rather than simply imagining a new landscape, the aim is to explore together with those involved how such a landscape can actually take shape and grow.

Meta van Drunen
“A healthy food landscape is not created by changing farming practices alone, but also by building new connections between farmers, communities and their surroundings. Meta van Drunen connects spatial development, agriculture and social cohesion, bringing these challenges directly into practice.”
The Grassroots Consortium

Designing What Does Not Yet Exist

With these three designers on board, Grassroots is now entering its next phase. Over the coming months, they will work with start-ups, researchers and other partners to further develop the three MVEs. The focus is not only on what each individual ecosystem needs, but also on methods that could help develop similar ecosystems in the future.

Grassroots is therefore both a design process and a research project. By experimenting, testing and reflecting in practice, the project explores how design power can contribute to systemic change: by creating new narratives, revealing hidden assumptions, designing new forms of collaboration and making new futures both imaginable and tangible.

The ambition is not only to help three ecosystems grow, but also to develop knowledge and methods that can help others drive the food transition forward.