Mycelium’s theory of change

Mycelium’s vision statement goes as follows: “We are here to give a voice and stake in the design of our food systems to the many people on the ground. Those who make gastronomy great.”. This is the “why” of our firm.

The underlying idea, of course not original to us, is that there are some key missing links in the mainstream approaches when thinking about our food system like a supply chain, rather than a closed loop intersected with complex societal spheres.

Like agricultural programs missing the link to the consumers and thus their direct impact in nutrition and health;

or nutrition programs missing the link to cooking and food cultures of the populations addressed;

or startups focusing so hard in scaling missing the basic link between ingredients and taste;

or people missing the link between their ability to cook to their own sense of agency towards the future.

We believe gastronomic knowledge has a lot to say in these regards, as we sit in a privileged spot in the food space: we hold daily interactions and hold relationships with producers, suppliers, makers and consumers; and we see things playing out in short feedback loops.

Gastronomy allows us to have an overview of human-human, human-nonhuman and non-human-non-human relationships that occur to the thousands in the food space; while also being embedded in a practice that requires technical knowledge, skill and a business case.

So without further ado, here’s how we think we can contribute to a better, fairer food system (brought to you by Miro):