During his 21-year career with General Mills, Bernhard van Lengerich saw the power of philanthropy up close through the company’s foundation as well as many of its volunteer programs. He also had the opportunity to travel to East Africa with Partners in Food Solutions (PFS), a Minnesota-based and General Mills-founded non-profit organization which provides expertise to African food businesses primarily from volunteer employees of world-class food companies. Bernhard went on this trip to learn more about the food value chain and to see up close the work Partners in Food Solutions was doing and how it was helping to improve global food security. He returned to the US motivated.
“The discrepancy in food access and food supply between this region and western geographies or the ‘global north’ are staggering. Within less than 10 hours you can travel from a world where hundreds of millions of people are starving, struggling to find food, are undernourished and stunted, to a world where food is in abundance. Research data shows that in the U.S. alone, over 40% of all food is wasted or lost - equivalent to over $400 billion. Over 80% of the population is metabolically unhealthy and more than two-thirds are either obese or overweight,” van Lengerich said.
“My experiences in Africa along with my work experience at General Mills - a company with philanthropy at its soul - shaped the fundamental beliefs that led me to setting up Seeding The Future Foundation. These fundamentals still guide the foundation today: 1. Everyone must have equitable access to safe and nutritious food that is affordable, attractive, and trusted; 2. Chronic hunger is unacceptable, and 3. Game-changing ideas always start small in the lab but can have a transformative impact at scale when nurtured and enabled to grow.”
The van Lengerich’s and their Seeding the Future Foundation, have supported Partners in Food Solutions’ program in East Africa for a long time. An initial philanthropic investment of $500,000 led to a further unrestricted gift of $1.1 million in 2019 to PFS’ Kenya program. This has allowed Partners in Food Solutions to work with almost 40 food companies, 44% of which are female-owned or managed. These companies employ over 3,600 people and have a supplier base of over 113,000 farmers.
Of particular importance to van Lengerich is Partners in Food Solutions’ apprenticeship program, which allows graduates with food science degrees to learn the trade up close and provide qualified support to companies who need to staff their labs and other areas of operations. van Lengerich, who himself completed two apprenticeships early in his career – one as a baker and one as a pastry chef – said he wanted Seeding The Future Foundation to help talented students be able to support the growth of African food companies. He sees the program as a bridge for students coming out of academia to their professional lives.
“We’re happy and honored to be able to support this program. It’s really great to see how bright students get educated and ready to go into the work environment, and then contribute to a better food supply overall. That’s why it’s a joy working with Partners in Food Solutions,” van Lengerich said.
“For every person we support, there is a contribution that the person is making to safer and higher quality food, which will help to improve the value chain in Kenya. While the program directly benefits students who are employed by food companies, the indirect impact on a safer and more nutritious food supply and society is many times bigger.”
Since June 2019, PFS has placed 34 apprentices in food production businesses. Of those who completed the one-year training, 38% have gotten jobs with that company, while 41% are employed elsewhere. More yet go on to further their education. The goal, said Magdalene Mbaga, director of service innovation and impact at PFS, “is to get them their first job out of college in the food industry, and keep them there.”
“There’s not enough support for food companies,” Mbaga said. “There’s a lot of donor attention around farmers, and there’s really no one else out there that exclusively focuses on the food companies that are going to take the farmers’ harvest, clean it better, and formulate it into healthy, nutritious foods in a way that it can be safely kept on the shelves for longer.”
Mbaga said that Partners in Food Solutions typically works with food businesses in Kenya that are ready to take their companies to the next level, but don’t have access to needed expertise in the market. Outside of the apprenticeship program, Seeding The Future Foundation’s gift has helped support 90 projects, as well as 66 mentorships in Kenya. It has also helped support clients with financing, consultations on equipment and finance, and food processing certification.
“What makes us different - and the only way that we can do this - is by hiring our own staff who are food scientists from Kenya, educated in Kenya, who understand the entire food processing system there, and can develop these long-term relationships with our clients and understand their needs,” Mbaga said. “Private donors like Bernhard and the van Lengerich’s Seeding The Future foundation make this possible. Without their help, we would be saying goodbye to clients and leaving them without the support that they need to grow and to solve problems. We are so grateful for partners like Seeding The Future Foundation.”