Episode 127: Innovation Forum Founder Toby Webb on building resilient smallholder supply chains and sustainability trends within the food industry

In this deep dive on sustainability within the food industry, Toby identifies three key trends –resilience, disclosure and consumer awareness – driving changes within the food industry generally. He discusses Innovation Forum’s recent detailed study on smallholder farmers, responsible for a very large amount of the world's food supply. The report highlights the ongoing challenges facilitating access to better markets, the need to develop resilient smallholder farming communities, and the importance of developing alternative income streams for smallholders, now and in the future. Toby also explores unfolding agriculture developments, touching on new “forest positive” strategies, as well as the possibilities of carbon sequestration as a ‘product’ which smallholder farmers can sell to international markets. And he discusses the impact climate change and sustainability is having on the wine industry--and the work he is doing with the new cross industry Sustainable Wine Roundtable.

Toby Webb is the founder of Innovation Forum a UK based purpose driven company that works in the areas of food, agriculture, land use, plastics, apparel and textiles and Scope III GHG emission. Innovation Forum brings together business executives with civil society groups, governments, academics and other experts, to find solutions to difficult supply chain challenges. He is also the founder of Sustainable Wine Ltd. and the Sustainable Wine Roundtable.