The Regenerative Fooding System Summit
Understanding Food as a Value-Adding Process
November 14, 2023 from 9:00am – 3:00pm Pacific Time
Every year, the Institute takes one subject and offers a Regenerative take on it. It is always a nodal subject to life, Earth, and all the living beings in and on it. One subject, we think, is being taken on by the well-intended members of business or institutions, but from a Worldview that is incomplete, missing core understanding, or just flat inaccurate from lack of precision and rigor. We offer a Regenerative, Living Systems Worldview, to invite well-intended businesses to further examine their approach and focus, as a way of answering the urgent and wicked questions being demanded now. This year, we scrutinize and examine Fooding.
We use the term fooding because it is a Systemic Value-Adding process and food is one aspect of an Earth to Earth process in which ‘food’ is an embedded product or output. A Living System view requires we understand the whole of the subject. We can image Fooding, at work! It is alive, dynamic, and a whole that needs understanding as a “working process.” Otherwise, we do more damage than good. Or we use effort that makes little or no difference on what we are called to do.
There are hundreds, at least, of Food Alliances, cooperatives, conferences as well as books and podcasts. But none I have listened to or participated with has a living system view or approach. In spite of their claims! They all use ‘nature’ as a stand-in at best. Nature and Living Systems are not interchangeable beings. One uses imaging of nested systems at work. One objectifies life by covering all life with a generic brush, and therefore a static description which is why we have so much ‘using of life forms’ for human benefit. It stands outside of us or some claim we are the same as nature. This hides the key role and work of each being, species, or specific system and therefore our understanding of our place, work, and role in a system.
Who will benefit: Those who have courage and invite a self-determination epistemology for examining your approach and are open to an unattached look at how the industry is facing it. What we are doing, currently, is not reversing climate chaos, inequity in distribution, misunderstanding of food safety and security, poor production of nutritional density for all beings. Come examine false premises behind these shortfalls.
We use the word, fooding, because it is the foundation of all processes of living systems.
“Everything eats. Everything is eaten. Without fooding, no other life processes are possible.”
“Carol is a visionary, giving us revolutionary, yet proven ideas, of what The Business of the Future looks like and how to create it, NOW. Carol’s work continues to be an amazing source of inspiration for Google Food Innovation Program—her approach to business is one of our foundational philosophies!”
– Michiel Bakker, Director, Google Global Food Innovation Lab
Business Teams Only. No Consultants. Email Carol to confirm fit. No refunds.
At this year’s Summit:
With a direct application to fooding, we will engage with these rigorous instruments:
The 7 First Principles, the manifesto of the Iroquois Nation, I learned with my Mohawk grandfather, and how Fooding works within 6 Levels of Value-adding processes.
How to work on food in a way to transform ecosystems and not aim to satisfy cravings – to do good so we feel good
The key principles that ALL food efforts miss when trying to bring new thinking and actions. Initiating with three traps versus the principles
- The fragmentation trap.
- The generic labeling trap.
- The problem-solving door trap
Four traits of humans that blind us to our misunderstandings and misdirection
- Pursuing relationship and belonging, not collaborative rigor in understanding the working of life and testing premises,
- Human centered distraction— the new anthropomorphism
- Wasted effort:, human projected missions and visions as goal posts
- Ego attachments to our unexamined strategies and operating Practice
“Carol Sanford transforms how to think about business and the world—producing not only sustainable prosperity but levels of meaning and commitment that most firms only dream of. She has created the prototype for the Business of the Future.”
– Rebecca Henderson, Senator John Heinz Professor, Harvard Business School
Investment Fee: $597 for first 3 participants, $197 for each additional attending member. As always, it takes a team, not individuals, to engage in the full experience of the Summit. We charge for 3 attendees even if bringing less. But we suggest you pay to bring more. The average is 6 per company. A cross section of perspectives or roles is typical and advised.
Business Teams Only. No Consultants. Email Carol to confirm fit. No refunds.
“Carol Sanford’s Regenerative way of working with Seventh Generation opened a door to a whole new level of engaging in everything we do—from how we organize the company, to strategic thinking, working with stakeholders, product development, and marketing. We have dramatically improved our strategic leadership and organizational practices. This has contributed significantly to growth of 45 percent in our first year and over 60 percent in the following years. This approach is foundational to the, and our, future.”
– Jeffrey Hollender, Co-Founder of Seventh Generation and American Sustainable Business Council.
Who should attend: If you are anywhere from soil to seed, ag, production, converting, restaurants, distribution, or fuel from food, and more. If you serve these industries as specialist. Even if you are in other industries, you can use what we offer on other subjects like, inhabitation, fashion, healthcare and more. This event is one of two a year open to non-members of the Institute, as a stand alone invitation (except OD consultants who may attend our Change-Agent Summit on August 11, 2023)
Business Teams Only. No Consultants. Email Carol to confirm fit. No refunds.
Producer and Director
Carol Sanford, founder of Carol Sanford Institute, has an extraordinarily successful forty-year track record of growing businesses responsibly, increasing their revenue by as much as 40%-65% a year. Her expertise includes teaching companies how to build triple-digit margin growth and offer a funnel of products for decade-sustaining earnings in dynamic industries and markets. She is a Senior Fellow of Social Innovation and Executive-in-Residence at Babson College.
Resources are members of The Regenerative Business Alliance.
“Carol Sanford’s probing questions helped us think more clearly about who we are as a company and how we can become more effective at achieving our mission. How can we, ourselves, and all of our employees shape and resonate with the goals of the business at a deep level? Carol offered ways for placing our highest human values at the center of our business, so that the business can become more relevant in the world and more rewarding to both customers and employees.”
– Dirk B. Wassink, General Manager, Second Use Materials, Inc.