03 / Why this exists
Farms, startups, investors, industry, universities, institutions. Everyone is working on the future of food. Almost nobody is talking to each other. TheFoodCons exists to change that.
Origin
In 2017 Antonio came back from Aruba, after running two food businesses, a food truck and Chef@Home, a private chef service, on an island that depends almost entirely on imports. There, almost everything on the plate arrives by ship or by plane. From that angle the food system looks different. You stop seeing sectors. You start seeing one long chain, and every weak link in it.
Back in Europe he found the opposite problem. World-class farms, brilliant startups, patient capital, serious universities, all within a few hours' drive of each other. Each one excellent. Each one speaking its own language. Barely talking.
TheFoodCons was born that year to fix the conversation.
"On an island, you can't pretend the food system is someone else's problem."
The story, as told by the press
What's at stake
of all human-caused greenhouse gas emissions come from food systems, from farm to fork to landfill.
Crippa et al., Nature Food, 2021meals thrown away every single day, while 783 million people went hungry.
UNEP Food Waste Index Report, 2024The world loses about $1 trillion a year to wasted food. Global venture capital in agrifood-tech in 2025: $16.2 billion. Roughly sixty dollars wasted for every dollar invested in fixing it.
UNEP 2024 · AgFunder Investment Report 2026The gap
Lack market access, industrial partners and the patience of people who have seen a harvest fail.
Lack sector literacy. Food is not software, and biology does not scale on a slide.
Lack speed, and often a safe place to test what could replace the way they have always done it.
Lack data from the field and a direct line to the people actually building the change.
What we believe