The World’s Largest Environmental Award, The Food Planet Prize, Announces Longlist for 2025 Prize of $2 Million

The Curt Bergfors Food Planet Prize, the world’s largest environmental award, has unveiled its longlist for the 2025 $2 million prize. Out of nearly a thousand nominations, 39 initiatives from 23 countries across six continents have been selected. These initiatives showcase inspiring examples of collective efforts aimed at addressing the environmental damage caused by current food systems.

Johan Rockström, Co-Chair of the Food Planet Prize and Director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), emphasizes the urgent need to transform global food systems: “The only way to stay within the 1.5°C target is to phase out fossil fuels, protect natural ecosystems, and transition food systems from being sources of greenhouse gas emissions to becoming carbon sinks. The global food system holds the future of humanity on Earth in its hands.”

A 2024 report from the Food System Economics Commission (FSEC), authored by leading economists and scientists, supports this view. Food systems could become net carbon sinks by 2040, helping limit global warming to below 1.5°C by the end of the century. This transformation could protect an additional 1.4 billion hectares of land, nearly halve agricultural nitrogen surplus, and reverse biodiversity loss.”

Emily Norford, the Food Planet Prize Nominations Manager, highlights the significance of the initiatives on this year’s longlist: “We are thrilled by the diversity of geographies and innovations of the projects represented. Each initiative contributes meaningfully to the solutions our global food system urgently needs.” 

The Curt Bergfors Food Planet Prize was founded in Sweden in 2019 to address the dangers current food systems pose to both human and planetary health, and with a mission to urgently reform how we produce, distribute, and consume food to ensure a sustainable future.

While there can only be one winner of the annual $2 million prize, all of the longlisted nominees make remarkable contributions to food systems transformation. These initiatives deserve recognition, support, and the opportunity to inspire others to drive positive change.

The Prize team will now thoroughly examine each longlisted project to better understand their work. This in-depth review will help identify the initiatives with the greatest potential impact, narrowing the list to 5-10 finalists. From these, the Jury will select one winner in June 2025 in Stockholm.

For more information about the Prize and the longlisted initiatives, please contact press@foodplanetprize.org

The Food Planet Prize 2025 Longlist.

Adaptive Symbiotic Technologies (USA)
Adaptive Symbiotic Technologies uses fungal endophytes and microbes to improve crop health.

Afrotym (Uganda)
Afrotym has developed a granulate that keeps soils moist during dry spells, made from organic waste.

AgriNatif (Haiti)
AgriNatif blends local traditional knowledge and regenerative practices to empower Haitian communities. 

ANDFOODS (New Zealand)
ANDFOODS makes dairy alternatives through a lentil-based fermentation process.

Aquatic Foods: Post-harvest losses and food waste reduction in Zambia
WorldFish implements an initiative in Zambia to increase food safety and improve nutrition security by reducing post-harvest losses in fish value chains.

Astungkara Way (Indonesia)
Astungkara Way trains farmers to grow rice in a regenerative way, incorporating ducks, fish, a floating fern, and border crops.

BioFiltro (USA, Chile, Peru)
BioFiltro uses earthworms and microbes to remove contaminants from organic waste, producing both clean water and vermicompost.

Cellular Agriculture (UK)
Cellular Agriculture maximizes production efficiency of cultivated proteins through hollow fiber membrane systems. 

Climate Smart Farming Program (Australia)
Through this program, Farmers for Climate Action champions climate-smart farming solutions and economy-wide policy action.

Comida do Amanhã Institute (Brazil)
Comida do Amanhã supports the transition to healthy, inclusive, biodiverse, and sustainable food systems in Brazil and beyond.

CuanTec (UK)
CuanTec repurposes shellfish waste to make the multi-functional biopolymer chitosan.

D-Olivette (Nigeria)
The 1,000,000 Closed-Loop Farms Project provides communities with electricity, cooking fuel, fertilizer, and feed by turning waste into biogas.

Enset Food Security Initiative (Kenya, South Sudan, Ethiopia)
Enset, known as “false banana”, is Ethiopian drought-resilient crop helping to provide nutrition and social equity.

Essential (Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania)
Essential tackles malnutrition by turning agricultural byproducts into Sub-Saharan Africa's first biomanufactured protein.

Food Frontier (Australia)
Food Frontier promotes alternative proteins through industry expertise, dialogue, and policy advocacy.

Gastromotiva (Brazil, Mexico)
Gastromotiva uses gastronomy as a catalyst for social transformation - improving food security, income generation, and sustainable development.

GrowBox (South Africa)
GrowBox brings food gardens and agricultural skills to the communities that most need it.

Le Lionceau (Senegal)
Lionceau combats food insecurity and malnutrition in Africa by producing nutritious, locally sourced baby food while promoting agroforestry.

Leanpath (USA, UK, China)
Leanpath has developed technology for food waste prevention and measurement in the food service sector.

Millow (Sweden)
Millow produces tastier and more efficient vegan foods with dry fermentation technology.

Mushuk Yuyay (Ecuador)
Mushuk Yuyay promotes the food sovereignty, agrobiodiversity, and ancient culture of the Kañari people.

My Food is African (Uganda)
My Food is African levers agroecology and indigenous crops to build continent-wide food sovereignty.

NanoFreeze (Colombia)
NanoFreeze uses bio-nanotechnology to provide low-carbon refrigeration solutions.

NitroCapt (Sweden)
NitroCapt makes energy-efficient fertilizer through plasma-produced nitrate.

OneFarm Share (South Africa)
OneFarm Share prevents food waste and improves local value chains by redistributing surplus produce and developing small-scale farms.

Planet-Friendly School Meals (UK)
The Planet-Friendly School Meals initiative supports countries to adopt school meals that improve diet quality and act as a catalyst for food systems transformation.

Pride on our Plates (China)
Pride on our Plates empowers China's micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises with food waste reduction solutions and behavioral insights.

ProVeg School Plates Program (UK)
School Plates program aims to revolutionize school meals by promoting planet-friendly and healthier eating habits among children.

Renewable Energy for Gendered Agribusiness Program (REAP) (Zimbabwe)
REAP empowers women through climate resilient food value chains.

Semion (USA)
Semion replaces chemical pesticides by activating plants' own defense mechanisms.

SRI 2030 (UK)
SRI-2030 promotes SRI, an agronomic framework that raises yields and lowers the climate impact of rice production.

Svensk Kolinlagring (Sweden)
Svensk Kolinlagring works with carbon farming as a lever to create systemic change in the food system.

The Atlas (USA)
The Atlas is a global tool that provides legal analysis, policy recommendations, and technical assistance to reduce food loss and waste.

The Postharvest Education Foundation (USA)
The Postharvest Education Foundation uses e-learning to spread the use of low-cost technologies that keep food from going to waste.

The Virtual Irrigation Academy (Australia)
The Virtual Irrigation Academy provides an innovative soil sensor that helps small-scale farmers manage water better.

Thrive for Good (Kenya)
Thrive for Good makes nutritious food accessible by helping families and communities start their own gardens.

TurtleTree Labs (USA)
TurtleTree produces animal-free dairy proteins and is finding ways to repurpose the byproduct of the production process.

Upcycled Food Association and Upcycled Food Foundation (USA)
The Upcycled Food Association (UFA) and Upcycled Food Foundation (UFF) accelerate the upcycled food economy by unleashing innovation and building networks to stop food waste.

Zero Foodprint Asia (Hong Kong)
Zero Foodprint Asia works with restaurants to fund a transition to regenerative agriculture.

press@foodplanetprize.org

About the Curt Cergfors Foundation

The Curt Bergfors Foundation was established on August 30th, 2019, in acknowledgment of the perils that our current food systems pose to the health of people and the planet, and with the conviction that the ways we produce, distribute and consume food must be radically and urgently reformed if future generations — and the planet itself — are to survive and thrive. Immediate action is required.  

Our vision is a well-nourished world population on a thriving planet.

The Foundation actively supports the transition to sustainable food systems through research grants, awards, and information campaigns. Most of our activities are centered around the Food Planet Prize. The founding capital of 500 million SEK came from Curt’s private assets. 

Website: https://foodplanetprize.org/

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