Mushchicken, mimicking animals and Mars-veggies at Dutch Design Week?

The ‘future of food’ has become a major (and more urgent) theme at the last editions of the Dutch Design Week (DDW) in Eindhoven, the Netherlands. I paid a visit last week and immersed myself in Spacefarming, an exhibition that was created by Next Nature and Embassy of Food. These 3 things and themes stuck in my mind.?

1. Hybrid meaty plants on the TikTok menu

Plant based diets are becoming more popular in some areas of the world. Yet, the craving for meat is still there. What about if we can find a way to create hybrid meaty plants? Food designer Leyu Li made up a fictional biotech company called “Plant+ Meat-” and developed its brand identity, but also delivery boxes and three fictional cultivated meat product props, Broccopork, Mushchicken and Peaf.

She then set up a TikTok account called Meaty Auntie and introduced the three future hybrid meaty plants to the public to provoke discussion and dialogue about in-vitro meat and collect people’s feedback. Some people actually believed that it was true! So far, the TikTok videos have gained nearly 3 million views and thousands of comments and followers. Sounds like a social experiment in 2023, but maybe reality in 2050 or sooner?

2. More food, less waste in space?

As the name of the expo suggests, it is not only about the future of food on earth. It also explores the possibilities of growing food in space. And this would be quite handy, considering that you would have to bring around 36,000 kilos of food and water to send 6 people to Mars. Space biologist Wieger Wamelink from Wageningen University showed his work around growing potatoes on a type of soil that resembles soil form the red planet. With a little help from fertilizer (algae) and earth worms to spice up the soil nutrients. How soon will this be reality, and how soon before we can order French fries on Mars?

Also explained at DDW's Spacefarming expo was the work from the European Space Agency (ESA) around developing a closed loop system for long-term space missions (a trip to Mars can take 2 years: 6 months travel up there, 1 year stay and 6 months travel back). This means reusing waste materials as much as possible. To fully close the loop, ESA is researching different microorganisms that can break down and transform waste to turn them into food, water and oxygen. Very much like the human digestive system actually.?

3. No animals needed (or available) for food?

There is a global shift towards plant-based diets, and more vegan products hit the shelves. According to GFI Europe, vegan cheese sales in Europe saw double digit growth between 2020 and 2022. It made ‘Margaret’, the stainless steel cow from the company ‘Those Vegan Cowboys' worthwhile to travel to Eindhoven as well. This robot cow is equipped with a precision fermenter where microflora creates casein and whey proteins, identical to those produced by real cows, to be used for the production of vegan cheese.?

Although the iron lady ‘Margaret’ is interesting from a biotech and protein engineering perspective, I was more intrigued by the ‘landless foods’ concept from textile designer Malu Luecking. Driven by her fascination for the underwater world, Malu’s work has been focused on algae for the last years. In her work she explores the potential of microalgae and macroalgae as a regenerative aquaculture for today’s material world and the future of food. On display was a prototype algae based dish, as an alternative for mussels, crabs and shrimps.

Oh…and there was also the Mammoth Meatball, that was 'born' in 2023 in the lab from cultured meat company Vow, built from mammoth DNA, puzzled together by cutting and pasting genes from the African elephant. OK, but is that the past or the future? ??