Building a Reading Terminal Market of the Future

Hungry Education’s first project using the topic of the future of food was the summer camp we designed for The Reading Terminal Market (RTM) as part of their year-long 125th Anniversary celebration. For additional details about the camp, be sure to check out our case study Reading Terminal Market: Food for Folks.

Hungry Education proposed shifting the idea of a nutrition-based, skills-based summer camp theme to one where students would design a Reading Terminal Market of the future. The camp schedule fell between the period when RTM was celebrating both the present and the future of the Market. Including camp attendees in the future celebration was an intentional move to recognize future customers and communities.

Hungry Education used past Market history as well as present-day considerations to begin the conversation around future possibilities. Lessons included topics such as food waste, creative reuse, transportation and food innovations, future food needs, and equitable futures. Subject Matter Experts (SME) were brought in as guest speakers and instructors to speak about food waste and design innovation. 

For the camp, Hungry designed and wrote all curriculum and lessons, created recipes, conducted intensive subject matter research, contracted with industry professionals to provide: lesson talks, field trips, and staffing, consulted on potential liabilities related to business, and provided services to children, consulted on the application process and providing information to families of children.

Keywords: Subject matter research, curriculum design, recipe design, business consultation, business development, safety and liability consultation, consumer education, future-ready design, product, and business storytelling.

Future Food Artifacts: Using Sci-Fi to Create Equitable Food Futures

In 2018, Hungry Education began to explore the use of sci-fi as a teaching tool to help future generations explore the future of food. While food insecurity is a fact for many, the power imbalance in our food systems is often the result of the stories we tell. Power and equity are at the heart of most, if not all, food narratives. 

We have the power to shift these narratives to be more balanced and inclusive. As we prepare future generations to live in a food-challenged world, we must change the way we tell our food stories. Sci-fi and speculative fiction, the literature of ideas, offers us a unique opportunity to challenge our beliefs so that we may evolve them. 

Hungry was invited to participate in two conferences in 2020, The Meaning of Food Conference held at Elon University and the Association for the Study of Food and Society held at the University of Georgia, Athens. Both conferences did not occur in person due to the pandemic but ASFS brought their conference over to Twitter. 

Hungry also brought sci-fi storytelling to two in-person events, The Mighty Writers Festival in the Fall of 2019 and Speculative Kitchen: A Fiction Workshop at the Free Library of Philadelphia. Both opportunities provided Hungry the chance to see how people interact with storytelling tools of story prompt cards, drawn narratives, and 3D artifacts for storytelling. 

Keywords: Storytelling, Narrative Analysis, Storytelling for Equity, Speculative Fiction, Speculative Design, Future Narratives, Foresight, Future of Food, Future Design

Future of Food Meetup Philadelphia

Hungry Education started the Future of Food Philadelphia Meetup in the Fall of 2019. The Future of Food Philadelphia (FoFPHL) is open to people of all backgrounds and disciplines who are interested in envisioning a just and equitable food future for all. We believe that the future of food is different things for different people and that there is no single solution for a just future food system. While nutrition is part of our comprehensive exploration of future food, this is not a nutrition-focused group. To that end, we are diet agnostic. We also spend time deconstructing the science and social application of nutrition to create a more equitable future.

Due to the pandemic, the majority of our meetups have been virtual. We are in the process of  shifting back into in-person meetups as the situation evolves around Covid infection rates. Hungry has held several webinars looking into social and cultural issues as they impact and shape the future of food. Some favorites include Consumed, How Science Fiction Cinema Got the Future of Food Right, and Speculative Kitchens: A Fiction Workshop. For more information about our Meetup and to join, please visit: meetup.com/Future-of-Food-Philadelphia

Keywords: Future of Food, Equitable Futures, Sustainability, Food Innovation, Food Technology, Food Waste, Science Fiction, Speculative Futures, Future Scenarios, Consumer Education, Community Education, Food Sovereignty, Inclusive Futures