How food systems innovation can enable healthier, more resilient cities

Food systems sit at the centre of many of today’s most pressing global challenges. They influence human health and productivity, shape economic opportunity and play a significant role in environmental outcomes.

Yet food systems are under growing strain – contributing to rising rates of diet‑related disease, persistent food insecurity and lack of access to healthy food, widespread food waste and increasing vulnerability across production, storage and distribution.

These challenges extend well beyond the community level. They are systemic, intersecting with healthcare costs, workforce participation, public spending and climate resilience. Addressing them requires innovation not just in products or technologies, but in how food systems function as a whole – from how food is produced and moved to how it supports nutrition, health and wellbeing.

This complexity is exactly why food systems sit at the heart of the World Economic Forum’s Growing the Wellbeing Economy Initiative, which positions wellbeing as a core economic driver and uses cities as platforms to align public priorities with private sector innovation. Urban communities are where these pressures are most directly experienced – and where the opportunity to act is greatest.

Today, cities are home to a majority of the world’s population and generate more than 80% of global gross domestic product (GDP). And, despite occupying just 3% of the Earth’s land, urban areas account for roughly two‑thirds of global energy demand and about 70% of carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions.

By 2050, an estimated 2.5 billion additional people will live in urban areas, intensifying both risks and responsibilities. Whether this growth leads to shared prosperity or deepens inequality will depend largely on how cities redesign the systems that underpin everyday life – including food.

Local food systems are uniquely complex. They rely on global supply chains yet must function locally. They influence daily health outcomes while shaping long‑term economic and environmental resilience. When these systems falter, the impacts are immediate: rising food prices, poor nutrition, lost productivity and increased pressure on public services.

Food insecurity highlights this complexity. While often framed narrowly as an issue of access or affordability, it reflects deeper structural challenges. Housing costs, transport, energy prices, healthcare access and climate exposure all shape how food is produced, priced and consumed.

These dynamics differ across places. In cities such as New York, rising living costs squeeze household budgets, leaving little room to absorb food price increases. Meanwhile, in cities across the world, food insecurity is closely linked to infrastructure gaps, limited access to fresh food or inefficient distribution systems.

Boston illustrates how these challenges overlap. Despite strong institutions and sustained efforts, many residents – particularly in marginalized communities – rely on convenience stores with limited fresh food options. Rising food prices, structural inequalities, language and cultural barriers, and broader cost‑of‑living pressures make consistent access to nutritious food difficult.

Climate change compounds these risks. Extreme heat and flooding increasingly disrupt food distribution and raise prices, while neighbourhoods such as East Boston face disproportionate climate exposure. In Massachusetts, an estimated 37% of households experienced food insecurity in 2024, up from 19% in 2019.

Responding to these challenges requires innovation grounded in lived experience. This is not about a single technology or trend, but about systems innovation – connecting entrepreneurship to real community needs, including food as medicine, waste reduction, climate‑resilient logistics and affordable access to nutritious food.

In Boston, start‑ups and community‑led pilots are testing mobile markets, climate‑resilient cold storage, and nutrition and data tools that link food access to health outcomes. These efforts demonstrate how innovation can strengthen wellbeing while improving resilience across the food system.

Boston’s role as an innovation hub – and soon launching as a flagship engagement of the Forum’s Yes/Cities initiative– shows how place‑based collaboration can translate local priorities into investable, scalable pathways for wellbeing‑driven growth. With strategic support from UpLink, the Forum’s early‑stage innovation engine, these efforts will help build a stronger local ecosystem for food‑systems innovation.

Yet early‑stage innovators cannot succeed alone. Less than 5% of global impact investment reaches early‑stage ventures, leaving many promising solutions underfunded and unable to scale.

Local governments and anchor institutions have a critical role to play. As conveners, they can align public priorities with entrepreneurial activity, reduce risk through pilots, and ensure innovation delivers tangible public value.

This reflects the broader goal of the Growing the Wellbeing Economy Initiative: reducing friction between policy, capital and market adoption so innovators can scale solutions that deliver measurable wellbeing outcomes.

Boston’s Office of Food Justice and GrowBoston: Boston’s Office of Urban Agriculture exemplify this approach by working with residents, community organizations, producers and public agencies to strengthen a more equitable and resilient food system.

Food systems innovation cuts across sectors. Nutrition tools often require healthcare partnerships. Waste reduction solutions depend on retailers and logistics providers. Improving food access frequently relies on early commitments from public institutions and private buyers.

A coalition is coming together soon as part of a new place-based effort called Yes/Boston to build connective tissue, linking entrepreneurs with investors, corporations and civic leaders around shared goals on the theme of food and health.

Through the World Economic Forum’s Yes/Cities Global Network, insights from city‑led food system pilots can be elevated and replicated across regions, strengthening a global movement toward a wellbeing economy.

While food system challenges are local, the lessons are global. Communities everywhere are grappling with how to deliver healthier, more sustainable and resilient food systems amid climate volatility and economic uncertainty.

What matters is not replicating individual solutions but scaling an approach – one that starts with local insight, aligns innovation with civic purpose and connects entrepreneurs to the ecosystems they need to grow.

Existing Yes/Cities initiatives, including Yes/San Francisco and Yes/Bengaluru, already demonstrate how place‑based collaboration can turn local innovation into scalable models. Together, they point towards a future in which communities become living laboratories for the wellbeing economy.

The link between food systems and prosperity is already clear. The question now is whether communities, investors and innovators move fast enough – and together – to sustain it.