The Food Fight

Co-Founder of Climate Farmers, Philippe Birker grew up around farming, built startups in Berlin and Amsterdam, ran a techno club, then bought an abandoned village in Portugal and fell in love with soil. What he found next changed everything. 

Traditional farming is struggling under climate chaos, stricter rules, and brutal price pressures. PerPlant co founder and CTO Sumod Nandanwarn bolts AI eyes onto the tractors farmers already own, turning every pass across the field into a precision spray decision that cuts chemicals by up to 80 percent and helps growers claw back profit without buying new machines.

 Donát Posta grew up farming. He knows first hand how many things can go wrong in a field, yet one category stands out. Insects. With Scout Labs, he is wiring up ordinary pheromone traps, turning them into a global early warning system.

Why do good intentions fail at the bin, what changes behaviour, and how did Inform Pack turn frustration in the kitchen into real shifts across Europe? Packaging experts Niki Alexi and Geraldine Vásquez pull apart the myths on “recyclable” logos, food packaging waste, and who really carries the weight for fixing the system.

Food Educators lead Fabienne Ruault turned her childhood on a French organic farm into a Europe wide movement that has already reached 10,000 teachers and nearly 200,000 students. She takes us through how lesson plans, local hubs, and career days are helping young people link what is on their plate to health, climate, and future jobs in food.  

Welcome to 2026 and the future of food! Matt is joined by Sofia Khun and Sara Roversi to break down everything on the horizon in the food system. They’ve spent years inside Europe’s top innovation networks, working directly with startups, policymakers, and global brands, and put that experience at the cutting edge of innovation to predict what’s next.

When global shocks hits - climate events, pandemics, war - our food system is one of the first to feel it. But what does it really mean for a system to be “resilient”? Who is responsible for absorbing the risks? And how do we design something fairer and more stable, without sacrificing progress?

In this packed final live session from Next Bite, Matt Eastland is joined by a powerful panel of experts pushing for change. The discussion moves beyond abstract concepts into real-world decisions as we explore how we finance risk, who takes the hit when things go wrong, and what we’ve learned from recent disruptions.

What does it take to truly shift a food system toward net zero? In this episode of The Food Fight Podcast, recorded live at Next Bite 2025, host Matt Eastland cuts through the noise with leaders who are turning climate targets into action, bringing together voices from across Europe, and tackling emissions from farms to supermarkets

Live from Next Bite 2025, this Food Fight special hands the mic to the people actually changing how we eat. We get into the real truth of building healthier lives, from school canteens to supermarket aisles, and ask what it really takes to help you eat better, feel better, and keep striving for change when real life gets in the way.

The reality of farming has changed. One fruit grower loses three harvests in three years. A cereal farmer now expects a climate disaster every season. Recorded live at Next Bite in Brussels, Matt is joined by Stéphane Durand and Damien Jourdain of the EIT Food Resilient Agriculture Think and Do Tank. They're working to change how European farming works, so farmers can plan a future with stable incomes, healthy land and food you can trust.