❔Why & how: food tech in Fab Labs, makerspaces and Fab Cities

Why should Fab Labs, makerspaces, & Fab Cities tackle food issues, particularly food technology? How can our places support the food system transformation? Let's explore.

The why, how, what, and who of engaging Fab Labs, makerspaces, and Fab Cities in food.

Why should a Fab Lab, makerspace or Fab City engage with food technology?

If Fab Labs already tout that they can “make (almost) anything,” why would products and processes related to food be an exception? Our motto can also be applied to technology that is used to produce, distribute, elaborate, consume and re- or upcycle food.

Our approaches join open knowledge, technologies, and distributed networks, all while building connections with communities, especially with those at the margins. By engaging these practices with food (tech) makers, food communities, and citizens, we can help foster new paths forward for how we do and make, enabling us to collectively develop alternative, empowering, and citizen-driven food solutions.

Engaging fab labs with food technology can help citizens, makers and communities take the food system back into their own hands by re-democratize making processes that have become largely privatized and capitalized on since the industrial revolution.

Within the food system, this can be referred to as creating Food Citizenship, one of the key components of the FoodSHIFT2030 project. Food citizenship is basically the transition from passive consumers into citizens with agency and rights. As opposed to only making limited choices about where their food comes from or how it’s disposed of, citizens are able to actively participate in how it’s produced, elaborated and consumed. Within a Food Citizenship framework, other actors within the food system also engage, collaborate with, and empower citizens. (See the Beyond Tech: New attitudes & approaches to reach the (food) paradigm shift section to learn more).

Members from the Food Tech 3.0 community, including the New Production Institute at the Helmut Schmidt University, Fab City Hamburg, Ars Longa, Fab City Grand Paris, and Fab Lab Barcelona, discuss why Fab Labs and Fab Cities should foster food innovations, like food technology. Hamburg and Paris are two of the Food Tech 3.0 FoodSHIFT2030 Enabler Labs.

How can a Fab Lab contribute to food technology?

We highlight a few opportunities for how Fab Labs and makerspaces can engage in food technology below:

1. Technologies & innovative processes. Fab Labs and makerspaces can use their digital fabrication tools and space to prototype and iterate food technology. Processes that are tried in Fab Labs or makerspaces relating to textiles, in bio labs, or with Precious Plastic machines can be adapted for food technology purposes.

2. Open, bottom-up design. Fab Labs and makerspaces are often sites for open-source and bottom-up design and making practices. Fab Labs and makerspace also often connect makers to communities in search of responses to their challenges, facilitating them to co-create a solution together. Our places can share these approaches and inspire food tech makers to participate.

Students take part in a hackathon for the project Centrinno in which they prototype ideas to address a local challenge. This methodology can be applied to challenges in food communities.

1. Capacity building. Learning by doing and train the trainer methodology-- in which a trainer is upskilled in order to be able to train others they engage with-- are common in Fab Labs and makerspaces. By joining the approaches in the realm of food, Fab Labs and makerspaces can first help empower makers to learn about alternative ways of fabricating and producing and then support makers in scaling their learnings through their respective communities.

2. Distributed design & networks. Fab Labs openly share designs and implementation processes through our networks. This makes it easy for someone at another Fab Lab far away (or even close by) to access information, adapt it to their local context, and re-share it for others. By introducing this approach to food tech makers, food tech can be similarly shared and scaled through existing and emergent networks.

Members from the Food Tech 3.0 community, including the New Production Institute at the Helmut Schmidt University, Fab City Hamburg, Ars Longa, Fab City Grand Paris, and Fab Lab Barcelona, discuss how Fab Labs and Fab Cities can foster food innovations, like food technology. Hamburg and Paris are two of the Food Tech 3.0 FoodSHIFT2030 Enabler Labs.

More information about specific areas where Fab Labs, makerspaces, and Fab Cities can intervene in supporting the transition to resilient, regenerative, and reciprocal food systems can be found in the Food system interventions: Opportunities & challenges section at the end of the GitBook. Additionally, you can check out the Scaling section to find more examples from our Food Tech 3.0 Enabler Labs in Hamburg, Milan, and Paris.