Open Call for Designers: Join the Agrofood Transition
On February 16, from 15:00–16:30, we will host the Grassroots webinar, presenting three agri-food startups and their challenges. For each Minimal Viable Ecosystem, €25,000 is available to support creative contributions.
Applications are open from February 16 to March 15.
What we’re doing
Grassroots maps Minimum Viable Ecosystems around startups in the agrofood sector. Together with these startups and partners, we investigate how these ecosystems generate societal impact within the food transition, where they get stuck, and where new perspectives are needed to increase the impact they create. By reaching out to the creative industry, we want to involve partners who can contribute fresh ideas and innovative design approaches that help these startups and their ecosystems move forward and support system change.
What are MVEs?
A Minimum Viable Ecosystem (MVE) is the smallest possible configuration of actors, activities, and relationships in which value is created for everyone involved. In an MVE, parties work together toward a shared mission without any single party extracting value disproportionately. It’s a workable structure that provides space to experiment, learn, and grow toward a broader, sustainable ecosystem.
Why we need creatives / designers
The food transition requires more than technical innovation alone. We need creative thinking power to tell new stories, shape collaborations, and redesign systems. Designers and creatives can contribute fresh perspectives and design approaches that help impact driven startups move forward and support system change—from narrative development and visual identity to designing processes and collaboration models.
The MVEs we’re developing
Within Grassroots, we will be working on three MVEs contributing to the food transition with the working titles:
- Food stays food
- Marketplace for alternative ingredients
- Healthy food landscape around ‘densely populated’ communities
During the period of two years, Grassroots will follow three startups, each contributing to the food transition in its own way:
Magie Creations, (part of the ‘food stays food’ MVE) mission is to create healthier food that produces less waste and it connects food products with meaningful stories for conscious consumers. Drawing on their expertise in ingredients based on brewers’ grain, they demonstrate how taste, health, sustainability, and affordability come together in compelling food concepts.
Circle Farming (part of the ‘healthy food landscape’ MVE) enables local, diverse, and plant-based food production on relatively small fields, reconnecting people with their food—from working the land to consuming locally. At the same time, it wants to support farmers in transitioning to regenerative agriculture, strengthen biodiversity and soil health, and contribute to the creation of green, resilient landscapes where nature, agriculture, and communities come together.
Grassa’s (part of the ‘marketplace for alternative ingredients’ MVE) mission is to enable autonomy for the Netherlands from soy import by unlocking the full nutritional value of grass through a natural process of pressing, heating, and filtering. This creates both high-quality feed for cows and other ruminants, as well as plant-based ingredients for humans and animals. Grassa wants to help dairy farmers by reducing pressure on animal efficiency through increasing the efficient use of grass and grassland as a raw material—with less waste of nutrients and a positive impact on sustainability, soil health, and CO2 reduction.
Join us on February 16
We’re hosting a webinar on February 16, 2026, where we’ll explain the Grassroots project, provide more background on what an MVE actually is and present the three challenges to creatives interested in applying to the open call.
We will conclude the webinar with a Q&A where we can answer your questions about the project, the MVE’s, and how you can get involved. We look forward to exploring together how design can drive the food transition forward.