Learnings, challenges & limitations

Learnings

All of the hours of meetings, conversations (both formal and informal), networking events attended, etc. served to not only familiarize the Barcelona community with Fab Lab as a food actor; it also significantly helped highlight what was missing in the current realm of food and tech and therefore helped us to understand what was needed from Food Tech 3.0.

Several of the main examples are:

• a general lack of understanding about what food tech is, who creates it and who uses it, and what it meant specifically to Fab Lab Barcelona

• how and where to increase the technological capacities of innovations if innovators were not themselves tech savvy

• how and where would funding come from for tech innovators, especially those interested in circular economy and subverting the status quo

• how to create a non-status quo business model and still be viable

• how to relate to open tech and open approaches without a larger company coming and stealing the approach

• the need for legislative changes in order to accompany the change in food tech and food actor dynamics

Challenges & Limitations

The main challenges & limitations identified during this phase could be boiled down to:

Unfamiliarity with food tech and potential alternatives

Stakeholders contacted during the first year were at first not able to identify food technology aside from examples like those coming from Monsanto, GMOs, or lab-cultivated meat.

Recommendations

• Spend all the necessary time and effort to help stakeholders identify food technology and conceptualise how they might engage with it

The timeline

Stakeholders were highly concerned about the 4-year timeline of the project. Our stakeholders were mainly smaller food initiatives and companies that, aside from facing the challenges of being small initiatives, were in a state of high flux due to the pandemic and post-quarantine period. Over the course of even 1 year, a small SME might fail, be re-born, and fail again. Stakeholders could not possibly commit to a four year timeline, let alone wait for two years to start seeing the results of their engagement.

Recommendations

• Co-develop a calendar with stakeholders to define the timeline and scope of their engagement

• Do not send endless emails: try to consolidate information and touchpoints into dedicated moments as opposed to contacting stakeholders separately for every issue as it comes up

• Continuously check-in with stakeholders on how they feel in the project and consider potential adaptations

“Brain Drain” and power dynamics

Stakeholders came into the project already exhausted and frustrated from the “brain drain” of offering so much information to different projects, especially when other projects, like FoodSHIFT2030, counted on guaranteed funding that did not include budget lines for 3rd party contributors. When that’s the case, and given the long time frame of the project, it is incredibly challenging to make participation attractive to stakeholders. This topic is pushing our team to push for budget lines for 3rd party contributors in future projects.

On a related note, it's essential to be conscious of the potential differences in power dynamics when entering into collaborations. For example, when a funded actor is working with an actor without funding, or when an organisation is doing interventions with vulnerable populations. Recognising and being transparent about these power dynamics is crucial and the actor in the place of power should do what they can to redistribute power between actors.

Recommendations

• Before engaging with stakeholders, identify the power dynamics that will potentially be at play. Ask yourself who is allowed to articulate, from where, and for what.

• Always go the extra mile to ensure the project fits with the goals of stakeholders.

• If possible, PAY stakeholders being asked to dedicate time and mental resources.