Food: Bigger than the Plate, sustainability at the V&A

Food: Bigger than the Plate, sustainability at the V&A museum opens on May 18th.

Its a fascinating visit, great for the older kids and educational for all ages. The exhibition explores how innovative individuals, communities and organisations are radically re-inventing how we grow, distribute and experience food.

Having just been to another event featuring waste food disruptors which included the Toast Ale entrepreneur Tristram Stuart who makes beer from waste bread it was interesting to see his product in the gift shop on my exit.

If you tend to have a gloomy outlook for our future lives then this exhibition will inspire you with how human ingenuity can work around the problems we are soon going to encounter, from lack of water to sustainably re using every element of the earth from corn husks to cow dung.

It’s too complicated to list every exhibit but below are some of the highlights to give a sense of the clever solutions found, we just need to act on these smart disruptors ideas and fast.

The show is divided into four main areas, Composting, Farming, Trading and Eating. In collaboration with BaxterStorey the show runs between May 18th and October 20th 2019.

Hedge H.U.G is a proposal to get rid of the split between the city and farmland, with housing in the area where hedges would traditionally be be in a new approach to sustainability and harmony.

Hedge H.U.G is a proposal to get rid of the split between the city and farmland, with housing in the area where hedges would traditionally be in a new approach to sustainability and harmony.

All of these items consider the full lifecycle of materials, eg; the coffee cups are made from coffee grounds collected from cafes in Berlin, they are reusable, durable and retain a slight scent of coffee and on sale in the V&A shop now

No waste, designer Alice V Robinson created this collection from one single cow, following its journey from slaughterhouse to butchering and tanning to making the clothing and eating the meat to fully understand the connection between her materials and the meat industry

Designer Fernando Laposse developed a new veneer textile called Totomoxtle made from discarded husks of heritage corn to highlight the decline of variety being grown in modern Mexico due to industrial techniques which led to new planting of heritage plants

The cycle of poo! Loowatt was invented for places with no sewage systems, a waterless flush that seals excrement in biodegradable pouches which are collected and converted into energy. Used in Madagascar and at a music festival near you. Do we really need wasting water to flush?

Ask a tomato plant a question. A computer analyses the basic meaning and translates it into beams of light, the plant’s computer response depends on how thirsty or stressed it feels!

Model for a novel approach, 50% of shipping containers transporting goods are empty on their return journeys, Phillipe Hohlfeld suggest Growframe, an idea for a collapsible hydroponic farming system to cultivate crops on the return journey in the empty spaces which can be harvested on arrival

The LOCI Food Lab will give you a personalised snack drawn from the ‘English lowlands Beech forest’ region in which the museum is located based on choices such as affordability or biodiversity or as I chose deliciousness!