From Pilot to Practice: Building Plant-Based Value Chains at ETH Zurich

I joined ETH Zurich as project director for the Plant4Value project following three of my professional passions: collaboration, sustainability and food. This project represents more than just a research endeavour; it is a collaborative effort to address one of the most pressing challenges of our time: the sustainable transformation of our food systems.

While the scientific community agrees on the environmental and health benefits of a more plant-based diet and production system, the transition is fraught with challenges. We face economic dependencies which entail high barriers for farmers seeking to change, limited consumer demand for new alternatives, and an often polarized public discourse. These are the major obstacles and systemic barriers we seek to overcome by an evidence-based, collaborative and solution-focused approach.

Unlocking change through collaboration

ETH’s commitment to combining rigorous scientific inquiry with practical, real-world application is the foundation of our project.

I believe that successful transformation is rooted in collaborative, interdisciplinary work and partnerships. We recognise and heed to the complexity of the food system by including diverse stakeholders across the entire value chain. Plant4Value operates on a transdisciplinary model, bringing together 24 partners, including farmers, food processors, retailers, and policymakers. We are not just studying the problem; we are working with the people which all are essential to co-creating the pathways to a more resilient food future.

Project director Daniela Hoffmann and scientific project director Lukas Fesenfeld are leading and coordinating the transciplinary project, which entails collaboration across the entire food value chain. Photo Credits: Philippe Grob

Piloting real-world solutions

For me, a distinctive part of Plant4Value is our commitment to experimental evaluation for evidence-based change. Over the next five years, we will be piloting and testing a range of innovative levers:

• Farmer Support: Using an experimental budget and/or site-specific consulting to de-risk the shift toward more plant-based food production.
• Technological Innovation: Real-world testing of novel technologies to create new economic value in plant-based food value chains.
• Demand Generation: Implementing choice-architectural and market-based interventions to better understand market potential, adoption and substitution rates.

Our core mission at ETH Zurich is to systematically evaluate the social, economic, and environmental impacts of these interventions. This evidence base is critical for providing policymakers and stakeholders with the data they need to enact effective, efficient, and scalable strategies for a more sustainable food system.

While our focus is Switzerland, the insights generated have global relevance. Every nation food system stakeholder from nation states, to farmers, to multinational companies is seeking pathways to a resilient food future. Plant4Value offers a systematic model for how science, policy, and practice can overcome inertia and foster plant-based value chains.

This transdisciplinary project is funded by the Mercator Switzerland Foundation, the Seedling Foundation, and the Minerva Foundation. It is hosted by the Albert Einstein School of Public Policy at ETH Zurich, in collaboration with the World Food System Center at ETH Zurich. Read more about the project here: https://einstein-school.ethz.ch/en/forschung/forschungsprojekte/Plant4Value.html