The Rift Is Real - And It’s Risking the Future of Food
This week, Future Food Movement brought together over 100 senior leaders from across the food system – from retail, policy, farming, investment, manufacturing and beyond, for an honest, off-the-record conversation about what credible leadership looks like in 2025.
- Article by Kate Cawley, Future Food Movement Founder
We heard what many of us are already feeling: that ESG is stuck, investor patience is wearing thin. That sustainability teams are stuck in 250-page reporting cycles while real operational change stalls. That commercial decisions still pull against climate and health goals.
This isn’t just friction. It’s a system in stretch.
I call it the Rift - the widening gap between what we know needs to happen and what’s actually being done. Between:
Science and policy
Ambition and funding
What people say they value and what they actually buy
What the planet needs and what’s rewarded on a P&L.
But this isn’t about bad actors – it’s outdated incentives.
Leaders aren’t ignoring the challenge, they are stuck. Fear is running the table: fear of backlash, fear of acting alone, fear of getting it wrong. And so we stall, not for lack of will, but because the system pulls in opposite directions.
So what now?
Ignore the Rift and we risk drift: ESG becomes box-ticking. Culture corrodes. Trust breaks down. And nothing changes.
But if we name the Rift – we can start to design for it.
Dr Clive Black didn’t hold back. He reminded the room: if society wants clean water, clean air, fair pay, and food security – it can’t keep expecting to spend just 10% of household income on food. We need to rebalance the system economically, politically and culturally. That’s the hard truth. And the leadership challenge.
We can’t solve this in siloes. This is the moment for grown-up thinking, long-termism and joined-up action – across business, policy and society.
If you’re feeling the Rift inside your organisation, between departments, between strategy and delivery, between purpose and profit I’d love to talk to you and dig a bit deeper. Because if we don’t start designing for the Rift, it will define our future for us.
- Kate Cawley, Future Food Movement Founder