PitchBook Analyst Note: Journey to a More Sustainable Food System

Modern industrialized food supply chains have become bloated and riddled with inefficiencies, driving excessive consumption of chemicals and energy, and contributing significant levels of food waste, packaging waste, and greenhouse gases. PitchBook's latest analyst note explores how innovation in the food supply chains is being driven by the efforts of governments, corporations, and consumers to achieve sustainability goals. Among the takeaways:

• Food brands are experimenting with new packaging—from terra cotta to mushrooms—as the industry plots a future that doesn’t rely on plastics and tree-derived paper.
• In agriculture, startups are finding a market for “ugly” produce that would normally be rejected from grocery stores. Robotic pickers, meanwhile, help prevent crops from wasting in fields amid labor shortages.
• A new generation of electric farm equipment, commercial trucks, and delivery drones stands to curtail the sector’s carbon emissions.