– A bit surreal – E24

– It feels a bit like an overtime pregnancy, says Gunhild Stordalen about the message she received several months ago, but which she can only talk about now.

The five who will be responsible for the main themes of the UN summit on healthy, sustainable and fair food systems have already been announced. The meeting is scheduled for 2021, in approximately exactly 12 months. Managers work for top players like WWF, Care International and Gain, funded by Bill Gates.

– And then there’s Gunhild from Muggerud and Little Eat from Norway. It’s a bit surreal, says Stordalen.

– Did you look for him for work?

Stordalen hesitates, doesn’t quite say it. The summit’s “special envoy”, Dr. Agnes Kalibata, offered her the position on behalf of the UN Under-Secretary-General. Stordalen has worked closely with Kalibata through her work with Eat, the initiative she started during the founding she received as a morning gift from her ex-husband Petter Stordalen in 2010, and which has been in operation since 2013.

– I was incredibly happy and honored. And then I’m proud that Eat is seen as a key player internationally, says Stordalen.

– Historic opportunity

The smell of burgers and frying grease flows everywhere when the E24 meets Stordalen at Salt in Oslo.

– Maybe this is not the right place to meet, says Stordalen and laughs when he reads on a sign at one of the food stalls: The body is not a temple, but a playground that you should enjoy while you can.

Beef and deep frying are not the biggest problems in Stordalen and Eat courses, which work to make healthy, sustainable and climate-friendly food available to everyone. The UN Food Summit will be about just that: how the world’s food production, food waste and diet must change to help achieve the UN sustainability goals and the climate goals of the Paris Agreement, at the same time that more food must be produced to satisfy a growing population.

Stordalen believes that the meeting will deliver concrete results, and not just words.

– Such gatherings rarely change the world on their own, especially in this political climate. Therefore, the goal is to build an unstoppable movement for change that can continue to grow long after the summit is over. In this way, we can achieve the comprehensive changes the world so desperately needs, says Stordalen.

The work she and the other thematic leaders will get will include organizing the summit in 12 months, connecting with more ambassadors, conducting more research, identifying the “big solutions” within each theme, and establishing a digital platform that will measure how you progress after the meeting. .

– Food is something that concerns us all, and it is not only crucial for our health and our common future, but also for reducing growing social inequality and preventing new pandemics. We now have a historic opportunity to engage not only value chain players, politics and industry, but also people from around the world. Food is very concrete and something that most people can do something with every day. What the UN sees now is that sustainability goals have a connection, they are not a spinning bag where you can only choose your favorites, says Stordalen.

One in three is malnourished

The facts and research are laudatory when you talk about this topic. That third of the way to achieving the climate goals of the Paris Agreement has to do with food and food production. About how great are the costs of health problems associated with food, such as diabetes. And that one in three in the world is undernourished, and about 30 percent of the world’s population today is overweight.

– It is not because we have come back later or have gained less self-discipline in recent years. It’s about price and availability. Nowadays, you almost have to have a Ph.D. in nutrition to really understand what you buy in the store; That can’t be the case, says Stordalen, who is a doctor and has changed his diet to eat healthier and more climate-friendly.

She says it’s not easy for her either.

– In Norway, one out of every two crowns we spend on food goes to food that has added sugar. It is almost impossible to know, because today sugar has more than 50 different names.

Working with financing

The last UN meeting on food and food security took place in 1996. The 2021 meeting will be somewhat different, as leadership roles are given to organizations that are already working on the issues they need to research, rather than to Member states. This means that Stordalen still works full-time for Eat, but that the foundation is now continuing its work with a UN mandate.

– It is innovative by the UN – they see that we cannot solve the problems we have now with the same mentality that created them. We need to work harder through and break down silos.

It is not yet clear how the meeting and the work to achieve it will be financed. Stordalen says that a way must be found to raise and distribute money, so that the organizations working with the meeting do not have to fund the work alone and compete with each other.

This may be important, as the coronavirus has also affected Eat’s financial condition. Several supporters have had to cut back contributions and collaborations, including Petter Stordalen’s hotel company, Nordic Choice.

– Of course it is also a challenge for us, but we will succeed. Nordic Choice remains the largest contributor and we are working on new partnership models, says Stordalen.