Nestlé and ETH Zurich establish a new research program that will explore climate change solutions while increasing nutritional quality and agricultural yield.

The program, coordinated by the World Food System Center at ETH Zurich, will focus on agricultural crops and dairy farming. The agricultural crop research will concentrate on the nutritional value of crops like fibres, proteins and micronutrients. It will also identify crops that are ideal ingredients for tasty and nutritious plant-based alternatives to meat, seafood and dairy products. Meanwhile, the dairy farming research will focus on the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions in dairy farming.

Stefan Palzer, Nestlé CTO, said: “We’re delighted to extend our long-standing collaboration with ETH Zurich – one of the world’s leading academic institutions – to the agricultural sciences, to reduce the carbon footprint of agricultural raw materials. The development of more climate-friendly ingredients and products is a key focus area for Nestlé to help reduce our global carbon footprint.” Nestlé is investing CHF 2.8 million in this comprehensive research program.

ETH Zurich President, Joël Mesot, added: “We are looking forward to continuing a long tradition of collaborations with Nestlé as a trusted partner. Only by working together across disciplines and sectors, we will be able to provide sustainable and secure food in the long term.”

The new research program complements existing collaborations with ETH Zurich and EPFL on food engineering, nutrition, and sustainable packaging. Nestlé and ETH Zurich co-founded The Future Food Initiative launched in 2019.

For more information:

Melanie Kohli
Head of R&D Communications
melaniececile.kohli@nestle.com

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The Canton of Fribourg plans to strengthen its position and become the Swiss leader in the agriculture and food industries.

On January 12th, the Fribourg State Council approved a strategy that gives it a leadership role in the agrifood industry. It is ”based on a Fribourg ecosystem already rich in this sector, exceeding the Swiss average in employment and added value“.

The Canton explained that “representatives participated in the development of the strategy to reflect the expectations and potentials of the sector.” Additionally, “the Covid crisis has demonstrated the resilience of this branch of the Fribourg economy“.

According to the Canton, their initial position is favourable due to heavy investments in the AgriCo Campus at St-Aubin. Meanwhile, the centralization of the Agroscope activities in Posieux have close ties to Grangeneuve. And all of this makes it possible to coordinate various initiatives to create effective synergies.

The Food & Nutrition Cluster will carry out the strategy implementation on a service mandate basis by building on existing structures. And the recruitment of 1.4 extra full-time units will reinforce these frameworks.

Technologies serving the environment

This development strategy has two main goals. First, to promote the application of digitization and automation (robotics, mechanics, Big Data) in the agriculture and agri-food industries. This shall increase productivity and added value and reduce the impact on natural resources. And the second goal is to make better use of biomass by including innovative technologies such as new proteins.

The last program focuses on consumer behaviour, particularly in terms of nutrition. Essentially, it enables testing of innovative products, the technologies of the future, from farm to fork. “This program will encourage the emergence of agrifood start-ups and the launch of innovative SME products,” said the State’s representatives.

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