Stockholm Brings Transformative Food Technology to New York

Food tech and clean tech are two of the sectors that are on the cusp of impacting the world far beyond the Swedish capital. Today, Stockholm’s impact companies are present in New York to share their transformative innovations at Sustainology, the business event that discusses the critical shift toward a sustainable food system.

Stockholm’s technology prowess rests firmly on Sweden’s focus to be visionary when it comes to all things technology-related. Johan Jörgensen, Master of Ceremonies at Sustainology, is among a growing group of people in Stockholm at the cutting edge of food technology. He thinks Stockholm could serve as a global model for how to create a revolutionary new food system, changing how we produce, eat and cook our food.

“Stockholm is one of the fastest growing cities on the planet. If we succeed in creating a food tech sector here that affects the way the entire city eats — and we think we will — then it can serve as a model for the food tech revolution worldwide,” says Johan Jörgensen, founder of Sweden Foodtech, a platform that connects Nordic food tech entrepreneurs, researchers and companies with investors and food tech experts around the world. Jörgensen has supported and incubated a number of companies that all play important roles in Sweden’s becoming carbon neutral by 2045.

In June 2019 Sweden became the first country to openly publish its detailed plan for getting there. It did so with the release of an online resource and dashboard that contains a digital roadmap for the country’s current and future climate actions. Stockholm startup Climate View was tasked with building the tool. Today they are at Sustainology to share how they build web-based situation rooms that help cities, states and businesses to achieve carbon neutrality.

Also present in New York today is Stockholm startup Grönska, Sweden’s largest urban vertical farm. They aim to showcase the possibilities behind urban farming of herbs and vegetables on a large scale.

Look beneath the ground in Stockholm and you’ll find proof of how the city is prepping for population growth: by making sewage part of how Stockholm keeps green. At Sustainology, Stockholm Water and Waste (Vatten och Avfall), the authority responsible for both sewage and drinking water management, will share experiences from setting up the largest sewage facility of its kind in the world.

Anna Gissler, CEO of Invest Stockholm, and speaker at Sustainology, is keen to see the connections grow between strong tech ecosystems in the world.

“The impact companies benefit and grow best in innovative, open and tech driven cities where international talents are closely connected with R&D, large corporates and strong capital markets. Such extraordinary eco-systems are provided by New York, San Francisco and Stockholm. Our ambition is to have Europe’s most progressive start-up ecosystem, in order to provide the best conditions for US companies looking to enter the European market,” says Anna Gissler, CEO of Invest Stockholm.

The impact of food tech and clean tech on climate and health issues is hard to overestimate. In Stockholm, new technology has already transformed both production and consumption to be more sustainable. It has helped preventing food waste and saving resources such as energy, water and soil. Furthermore, the solutions have provided valuable data that will support the city´s future food policies and climate resilience, and contributed to a better diet and wellbeing of the inhabitants.