Food systems change compass

A playful tool to find your role in the food transition

What

Systems change intervention

Collaborators

Embassy of Food Heerlijk van Hier Stichting Technotrend Cor Noltee & Valerie Kuster

When

2026

How

How do you chart the course towards a future-proof food system?

Hold two loaves of bread side by side. One: fresh crust, two ingredients, local grain milled nearby, baked this morning. The other: plastic-wrapped, 13 ingredients, grain from Eastern Europe, no crust. That comparison, which was used in a workshop in Arnhem, reveals how an everyday purchase hides choices about landscape, health, local economy, craftsmanship and taste.

Our food system is full of complex challenges. Waste, health, biodiversity, climate change, quality of life and social (in)equality can no longer be seen separately. They are inextricably connected. Embracing that complexity is, however, easier said than done. Even for the most seasoned changemakers, working within it can be overwhelming.

In 2024, Futurall partnered with the Embassy of Food and a coalition of stakeholders to ask: what would it take to make food systems change feel local, tangible, personal and exciting? Not just for experts and advocates, but for citizens, young people, policymakers, and local changemakers. Anyone who eats.

We made a tangible and playful instrument to help navigate complexity, building on the ideas and experiences of food pioneers.

Working with the Embassy of Food and their stakeholder network, we developed the Compass as a life-sized, spinning physical installation

Layer 1 surfaces different lenses for looking at the food system: health, cultural capital, landscape management, good growth, community asset, social innovation. Layer 2 explores the practices and mindset shifts needed to create real change — from challenging assumptions and exploring paradoxes, to letting go of what no longer works. Layer 3 is filled with seeds of inspiration: existing initiatives across the Netherlands showing what's already growing. For a more in depth explanation of the compass check out our explainer blog.

We debuted the compass at Dutch Design Week 2024, as part of the Designing Society exhibition, designed to spark new and sometimes unexpected conversations about the food system.

From there it kept moving. As part of Table Conversations, a programme with 100 stakeholders from across the food system. Into policy contexts, including the Dutch Ministry of Internal Affairs. Into Arnhem with local food initiative Heerlijk van Hier, where we used the compass at the local green market to start a conversation with locals about how they can participate in activities to improve their local food systems. Into secondary schools. And into Bodemkracht, a week-long green traineeship for young people under 30, held on a farm in Zeeland, where participants explored their role in the food system using the six perspectives of the compass.

The compass doesn't promise quick fixes. Instead, it reveals how change can be owned at many levels and roles: citizens, teachers, policymakers, startups, neighbourhood groups.

Over two years it sparked meaningful dialogue across a remarkable range of contexts. In Arnhem, a man shared how ordering a local root-vegetable box led him to call his mother to ask how to cook unfamiliar vegetables. A woman described taking part in a collective herb garden and now turning an empty square into a "buuf-keet", a neighbour-hut for cheap coffee, conversation and shared action. These are small acts that hold alternative stories about food and collective power.

After Bodemkracht, participants leave not just with a clearer picture of the food system, but with a felt, embodied understanding of it, along with a network of like-minded people, farmers and changemakers, and their own personal compass as a guide. The traineeship runs for the second time in 2026. The physical installation is available for touring. And we are still looking for food sector organisations that want to use the compass to open up conversations about their own challenges.

Welke koers kies jij? Which course will you choose?

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Credits

Initiator and co-producer
‍Barbara Vos

Production physical installation
Studio Kader

Partners
‍Cor Noltee (Bodemkracht)
Valerie Kuster (Bodemkracht)
Jos Bogaarts (Heerlijk van Hier)
Marjolein Pijper (Stichting Technotrend)
Luka Driessen (Stichting Technotrend)

Volunteers and facilitators
‍Anaïs Passera
Rosa Ellens

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Exhibitions

Dutch Design Week, Designing Society (October 2024)
Innovate Experience (October 2025)

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