
Editorâs Voicemail
A world without waste could be closer than we think
Quantum computing could be key to reducing the inefficiencies we take for granted
Editorâs Voicemail
Quantum computing could be key to reducing the inefficiencies we take for granted
Net Zero Sensemaker
By pushing for more homegrown food, the Truss government is squandering a rare opportunity to make British farming greener post Brexit
Net Zero Sensemaker
How the UKâs food giants are missing their food waste targets.
Sensemaker Audio
Chicken is the UKâs favourite meat and thatâs partly because itâs cheap. Per kilo it costs less than a pint of lager. But it looks unlikely that prices can stay that low. Why is the cost of chicken rising?
Sensemaker
What just happened
Sensemaker Audio
The UK has the highest level of obesity in western Europe. Will better food labels help us break free of junk food?
Cheaper food doesnât always mean better food. Products that cost less in monetary terms often have a higher cost elsewhere. The Tortoise Better Food Index â a ranking of food companies based on environmental, health and transparency metrics â aims to make the true cost of what we eat more visible
Net Zero Sensemaker
Food is the second biggest emitter of manmade greenhouse gases. But many UK food companies donât reveal the scale of their supply chain emissions.
Editorâs Voicemail
Quantum computing could be key to reducing the inefficiencies we take for granted
Sensemaker Audio
Chicken is the UKâs favourite meat and thatâs partly because itâs cheap. Per kilo it costs less than a pint of lager. But it looks unlikely that prices can stay that low. Why is the cost of chicken rising?
Sensemaker Audio
The UK has the highest level of obesity in western Europe. Will better food labels help us break free of junk food?
Slow Newscast
The Ukrainian port normally feeds the world, but the Russian invasion means nothing is getting out. Can we reopen the port â or will millions starve?
Editorâs Voicemail
Four hundred million people globally rely on exports that come via Odesa in Ukraine â a port currently blocked by Russian forces. If it isnât reopened within eight weeks, the effects will be felt globally
Sensemaker
Inflation has hit a 30-year high as energy, fuel and food costs continue to soar. A humble bag of pasta can tell us why the price of supermarket basics are rising.
Sensemaker
The British government wants to ban junk food adverts. But who decides whatâs junk?
Buy local? It sounds good, but shrinking the huge carbon footprint of the global food and agriculture business isnât that simple. Jelena Sofronijevic went in search of solutions that might actually work.
thinkin
How much should a chicken really cost? Itâs our favourite meat and costs less than a pint. We know this has an environmental cost, from deforestation for chicken feed to water pollution. But whatâs a fair price â and how can we get consumers to pay it? A discussion that brings in the idea of how often we should eat chicken (and other meat), whether we should tax it, how we maintain access to cheap protein while looking after the environment and respecting animal lives.This ThinkIn is part of Tortoiseâs Accelerating Net Zero coalition.The initiative brings together our members and a network of organisations across a programme of ThinkIns and journalism devoted to accelerating progress towards Net Zero.Visit the homepage to find out more about the coalition and join us. With thanks to our coalition members: a network of organisations similarly committed to achieving Net Zero. editor and invited experts Giles WhittellSensemaker Editor Angela JonesEnvironmentalist and Campaigner, âWild Woman of the Wyeâ Celia HomyakPh.D. Co-Director & Industry Fellow Alternative Meats Lab Shraddha KaulDirector of External Affairs at British Poultry
thinkin
Improving the food system is one of the greatest challenges we face today. As the National Food Strategy, led by Henry Dimbleby, notes, âthe global food system is the single biggest contributor to biodiversity loss, deforestation, drought, freshwater pollution and the collapse of aquatic wildlife. It is the second-biggest contributor to climate change, after the energy industry.â The UK Government is due to publish its formal response in the form of a food strategy white paper this summer. This will be the Governmentâs chance to set out its vision and actions necessary to help turn the National Food Strategyâs recommendations into a reality. However, the Government cannot tackle this issue alone. A grassroots movement and engagement from across different sectors is required too. Bonnie Wrightâs book Go Gently provides practical ways in which people, communities and organisations can do this, while recognising the vital role governments at all levels can play in unlocking the potential for food system transformation. Join us for a ThinkIn that brings together the key voices on this agenda from inside and outside of government to discuss how we can create a healthy, sustainable food system in Britain. editor and invited experts Jeevan VasagarClimate Editor Bonnie WrightActor, Activist and Author of âGo Gentlyâ Henry DimblebyFounder of Leon, Government Advisor and National Food Strategy Lead Victoria Prentis MPMinister of State at DEFRA
thinkin
Monroe rose to prominence writing about their struggles to feed their young son with a food budget of ÂŁ10 a week on their blog âCooking on a Bootstrapâ. Since then, Monroe has published cookbooks filled with âausterity recipesâ and has given evidence in Parliament highlighting the impact of the rising cost of basic food items on people living in poverty.In response to George Eusticeâs suggestion that shoppers could âmanage their household budgetâ by changing the brands they buy, they responded that âsomebody who claims ÂŁ196,000 in expenses in a single year is in no position to tell other people to get cheaper biscuitsâ.Join us for a very special ThinkIn with Jack, where weâll be talking all about food poverty campaigning, the cost of living crisis, and the inflation of a bag of pasta with their trademark wit and cutting commentary. editor and invited experts David TaylorEditor Jack MonroeCampaigner, Author and Blogger â âCooking on a Bootstrapâ
thinkin
This is a digital only ThinkIn.Half the sugar! Low in fat! Packed with wholegrain! Made with 100% fruit! Have you ever swapped your favourite cheesy crisps for a bag of âveggie chipsâ with a cartoon kale on the front? Often the so-called healthier option contains a vanishingly small amount of vegetables, and just as much salt and fat as the former. Itâs all about marketing. Regulators can dictate what information MUST be listed on packaging, but they donât control how foods are branded and promoted. Food companies are brilliant at targeting young people especially, with products that tap into âsuperfoodâ fads but that deliver no real health benefits, and may actually be harmful if theyâre eaten frequently. Tortoise is partnering with Bite Back to host a ThinkIn in which we will share new research revealing which products are the worst offenders. Together with well-known representatives from the food industry, policymakers, healthcare professionals and chefs, we will discuss why this is still happening, the impact on young peopleâs health, and what can be done about it?About Bite Back 2030.It should be easy for us to eat healthily â it isnât. The food system is rigged against us, flooding our world with junk food then putting billions into marketing that makes it impossible to resist. We can and must redesign that system to protect the health and futures of millions of children. Bite Back 2030 is a youth-led movement, working to ensure every child has access to a good diet; at home, on the high street and at school. Because it matters to their health. Our ultimate goal is to halve child obesity by 2030. editor and invited experts Liz MoseleyMembersâ Editor Alessandra BelliniChief Customer Officer & Executive Sponsor for D&I, Tesco plc. Christina AdaneBite Back Co-Chair Youth Board Jamie Oliver, MBEBritish chef, restaurateur and food campaigner
thinkin
We held our office Christmas party this week; a little early, I admit, but good to beat the rush. Iâll spare you the details, except one: we over-ordered. There was too much food left and, briefly, it went from feeling generous to ugly. But only briefly. Because, of course, thereâs an app for that. An app for leftovers, that makes sure whatâs not eaten doesnât go to waste. Iâm James Harding, Editor of Tortoise, and I mention the Christmas party leftovers not as a mini mea culpa, but because one of the more encouraging moments of my week was the realisation that technology is coming for waste in all its forms: food waste, financial waste, information waste, energy waste, health waste. One of those moments when you see a thing, then a pattern, then it seems to repeat itself everywhere. Hereâs why. On Wednesday, we hosted our first Responsible Quantum Summit. My colleague Luke Gbedemah, who writes the Tech States Sensemaker, had identified a group of people who can explain quantum computing and, excitingly, give a sense of where itâs going. He also gave me a reading list for the night before, and so rather than pretend that I now can offer you an easy definition of quantum computing, Iâll give you the pithiest explanation that I read, courtesy of the New York Times: âTraditional computers perform calculations by processing âbitsâ of information, with each bit holding one of two values: a 1 or a 0. A collection of eight bits â known as a byte â can store a single character, like the letter A. A quantum computer, on the other hand, processes bits built by scientists that can exist as both a 1 and a 0 simultaneously. So whereas two traditional bits hold only two values, a pair of these so-called âqubitsâ can hold four values at once. And as the number of qubits grows, a quantum computer becomes exponentially more powerful â three qubits hold eight values, four qubits hold 16 and so on. That makes todayâs supercomputers look like toys.â But what was so mind-blowing about the quantum summit in our newsroom, though, wasnât what it made me understand, but what it forced me to imagine. The first step was realising how real and near quantum applications could be. Not way over the horizon, but in the next decade. Not just encryption in the digital world by creating a key that cannot be hacked. But also real-world problems like fertilisers in farming and carbon capture and language processing. And, by language processing, they mean not transcription from voice to text and back again, but machines that understand meaning â jokes included. Looking back over my notebook of the day, though, I see one word scrawled and underlined: wasteland. Itâs because, as I listened to Ilyas Khan, the CEO of Quantinuum, and Richard Murray of Orca and Yixin Shen at Royal Holloway and others, I heard a similar pattern of thought: people seeing ways in which we live that could be more efficient, safer and sustainable if we applied powerful computers to do the things that we do every day, but better. We could improve the security of financial transactions. We could ensure health data is more effectively used. We could reduce water pollution and fertiliser run-off. We could create new materials that effectively store carbon emissions. In other words, if we applied ourselves, we could reduce inefficiencies that weâve just come to take for granted. We could cut waste from financial fraud, waste of life in the inefficient use of health information, waste of our resources and biodiversity in unnecessary planetary degradation. One of the mind-boggling facts of our wasteful world is that if food waste were a country, according to the UN, it would be the third biggest emitter of greenhouse gases after China. But the fact is that waste is built into so much of our economic and social way of life. And allow yourself in these anxious and stressful times to imagine what benefit technology has in store, what it will do and what it can do to different kinds of waste in the decade to come. By the way, this is not a claim on my part to be a model of modesty when it comes to eating, ordering or wasting food. Anyone who knows me would cackle at that thought. And I also know that the obsession that comes with age â an obsession about rubbish creeps up on people and, before you know it, youâre a middle-aged man who gets a strange mixture of anxiety and excitement on the day the bins are collected. But thereâs an idea, here, I think. One to explore in 2023. Waste â and the application of technology to reduce it. And, when you start thinking about it, you see the pattern and the possibility everywhere. Even in a post-Christmas party haze. Catch up The Responsible Quantum Summit Conversations around shared languages, national security, global economy and quantum supremacy with special guests.
thinkin
We held our office Christmas party this week; a little early, I admit, but good to beat the rush. Iâll spare you the details, except one: we over-ordered. There was too much food left and, briefly, it went from feeling generous to ugly. But only briefly. Because, of course, thereâs an app for that. An app for leftovers, that makes sure whatâs not eaten doesnât go to waste. Iâm James Harding, Editor of Tortoise, and I mention the Christmas party leftovers not as a mini mea culpa, but because one of the more encouraging moments of my week was the realisation that technology is coming for waste in all its forms: food waste, financial waste, information waste, energy waste, health waste. One of those moments when you see a thing, then a pattern, then it seems to repeat itself everywhere. Hereâs why. On Wednesday, we hosted our first Responsible Quantum Summit. My colleague Luke Gbedemah, who writes the Tech States Sensemaker, had identified a group of people who can explain quantum computing and, excitingly, give a sense of where itâs going. He also gave me a reading list for the night before, and so rather than pretend that I now can offer you an easy definition of quantum computing, Iâll give you the pithiest explanation that I read, courtesy of the New York Times: âTraditional computers perform calculations by processing âbitsâ of information, with each bit holding one of two values: a 1 or a 0. A collection of eight bits â known as a byte â can store a single character, like the letter A. A quantum computer, on the other hand, processes bits built by scientists that can exist as both a 1 and a 0 simultaneously. So whereas two traditional bits hold only two values, a pair of these so-called âqubitsâ can hold four values at once. And as the number of qubits grows, a quantum computer becomes exponentially more powerful â three qubits hold eight values, four qubits hold 16 and so on. That makes todayâs supercomputers look like toys.â But what was so mind-blowing about the quantum summit in our newsroom, though, wasnât what it made me understand, but what it forced me to imagine. The first step was realising how real and near quantum applications could be. Not way over the horizon, but in the next decade. Not just encryption in the digital world by creating a key that cannot be hacked. But also real-world problems like fertilisers in farming and carbon capture and language processing. And, by language processing, they mean not transcription from voice to text and back again, but machines that understand meaning â jokes included. Looking back over my notebook of the day, though, I see one word scrawled and underlined: wasteland. Itâs because, as I listened to Ilyas Khan, the CEO of Quantinuum, and Richard Murray of Orca and Yixin Shen at Royal Holloway and others, I heard a similar pattern of thought: people seeing ways in which we live that could be more efficient, safer and sustainable if we applied powerful computers to do the things that we do every day, but better. We could improve the security of financial transactions. We could ensure health data is more effectively used. We could reduce water pollution and fertiliser run-off. We could create new materials that effectively store carbon emissions. In other words, if we applied ourselves, we could reduce inefficiencies that weâve just come to take for granted. We could cut waste from financial fraud, waste of life in the inefficient use of health information, waste of our resources and biodiversity in unnecessary planetary degradation. One of the mind-boggling facts of our wasteful world is that if food waste were a country, according to the UN, it would be the third biggest emitter of greenhouse gases after China. But the fact is that waste is built into so much of our economic and social way of life. And allow yourself in these anxious and stressful times to imagine what benefit technology has in store, what it will do and what it can do to different kinds of waste in the decade to come. By the way, this is not a claim on my part to be a model of modesty when it comes to eating, ordering or wasting food. Anyone who knows me would cackle at that thought. And I also know that the obsession that comes with age â an obsession about rubbish creeps up on people and, before you know it, youâre a middle-aged man who gets a strange mixture of anxiety and excitement on the day the bins are collected. But thereâs an idea, here, I think. One to explore in 2023. Waste â and the application of technology to reduce it. And, when you start thinking about it, you see the pattern and the possibility everywhere. Even in a post-Christmas party haze. Catch up The Responsible Quantum Summit Conversations around shared languages, national security, global economy and quantum supremacy with special guests.
thinkin
We held our office Christmas party this week; a little early, I admit, but good to beat the rush. Iâll spare you the details, except one: we over-ordered. There was too much food left and, briefly, it went from feeling generous to ugly. But only briefly. Because, of course, thereâs an app for that. An app for leftovers, that makes sure whatâs not eaten doesnât go to waste. Iâm James Harding, Editor of Tortoise, and I mention the Christmas party leftovers not as a mini mea culpa, but because one of the more encouraging moments of my week was the realisation that technology is coming for waste in all its forms: food waste, financial waste, information waste, energy waste, health waste. One of those moments when you see a thing, then a pattern, then it seems to repeat itself everywhere. Hereâs why. On Wednesday, we hosted our first Responsible Quantum Summit. My colleague Luke Gbedemah, who writes the Tech States Sensemaker, had identified a group of people who can explain quantum computing and, excitingly, give a sense of where itâs going. He also gave me a reading list for the night before, and so rather than pretend that I now can offer you an easy definition of quantum computing, Iâll give you the pithiest explanation that I read, courtesy of the New York Times: âTraditional computers perform calculations by processing âbitsâ of information, with each bit holding one of two values: a 1 or a 0. A collection of eight bits â known as a byte â can store a single character, like the letter A. A quantum computer, on the other hand, processes bits built by scientists that can exist as both a 1 and a 0 simultaneously. So whereas two traditional bits hold only two values, a pair of these so-called âqubitsâ can hold four values at once. And as the number of qubits grows, a quantum computer becomes exponentially more powerful â three qubits hold eight values, four qubits hold 16 and so on. That makes todayâs supercomputers look like toys.â But what was so mind-blowing about the quantum summit in our newsroom, though, wasnât what it made me understand, but what it forced me to imagine. The first step was realising how real and near quantum applications could be. Not way over the horizon, but in the next decade. Not just encryption in the digital world by creating a key that cannot be hacked. But also real-world problems like fertilisers in farming and carbon capture and language processing. And, by language processing, they mean not transcription from voice to text and back again, but machines that understand meaning â jokes included. Looking back over my notebook of the day, though, I see one word scrawled and underlined: wasteland. Itâs because, as I listened to Ilyas Khan, the CEO of Quantinuum, and Richard Murray of Orca and Yixin Shen at Royal Holloway and others, I heard a similar pattern of thought: people seeing ways in which we live that could be more efficient, safer and sustainable if we applied powerful computers to do the things that we do every day, but better. We could improve the security of financial transactions. We could ensure health data is more effectively used. We could reduce water pollution and fertiliser run-off. We could create new materials that effectively store carbon emissions. In other words, if we applied ourselves, we could reduce inefficiencies that weâve just come to take for granted. We could cut waste from financial fraud, waste of life in the inefficient use of health information, waste of our resources and biodiversity in unnecessary planetary degradation. One of the mind-boggling facts of our wasteful world is that if food waste were a country, according to the UN, it would be the third biggest emitter of greenhouse gases after China. But the fact is that waste is built into so much of our economic and social way of life. And allow yourself in these anxious and stressful times to imagine what benefit technology has in store, what it will do and what it can do to different kinds of waste in the decade to come. By the way, this is not a claim on my part to be a model of modesty when it comes to eating, ordering or wasting food. Anyone who knows me would cackle at that thought. And I also know that the obsession that comes with age â an obsession about rubbish creeps up on people and, before you know it, youâre a middle-aged man who gets a strange mixture of anxiety and excitement on the day the bins are collected. But thereâs an idea, here, I think. One to explore in 2023. Waste â and the application of technology to reduce it. And, when you start thinking about it, you see the pattern and the possibility everywhere. Even in a post-Christmas party haze. Catch up The Responsible Quantum Summit Conversations around shared languages, national security, global economy and quantum supremacy with special guests.
thinkin
One of the worldâs leading scientists reveals why so much of the current advice on food and nutrition is dangerously inaccurate. Our daily digital ThinkIns are exclusively for Tortoise members and their guests.Try Tortoise free for four weeks to unlock your complimentary tickets to all our digital ThinkIns.If youâre already a member and looking for your ThinkIn access code you can find it in the My Tortoise > My Membership section of the app next to âThinkIn access codeâ.Weâd love you to join us.Professor Tim Spector, one of the worldâs leading scientists, believes almost everything weâve been told about food and nutrition is wrong. Join us to listen to insights from his extraordinary new book Spoon-Fed, through which he will encourage us to question every diet plan, official recommendation, miracle cure or food label we encounter. Chair: Ceri Thomas, Editor and Partner, TortoisePre-order the book hereAbout Professor TimProfessor Tim Spector is a professor of genetic epidemiology at Kingâs College London and honorary consultant physician at Guyâs and St Thomasâ Hospitals. He is a multi-award winning expert in personalised medicine and the gut microbiome and the author of four books, including the bestselling The Diet Myth.Professor Spector is on the scientific advisory board of health science company ZOE. The ZOE Covid Symptom Study app is being used by over 4m people to regularly report on their health, making it the largest public science project of its kind anywhere in the world.How does a digital ThinkIn work?A digital ThinkIn is like a video conference, hosted by a Tortoise editor, that takes place at the advertised time of the event. Digital ThinkIns are new to Tortoise. Now that our newsroom has closed due to the coronavirus outbreak, we feel itâs more important than ever that we âget togetherâ to talk about the world and whatâs going on.The link to join the conversation will be emailed to you after you have registered for your ticket to attend. When you click the link, you enter the digital ThinkIn and can join a live conversation from wherever you are in the world. Doors open at 6:20pm for a welcome and briefing. Come early to get settled, meet the team and chat to other members. ThinkIn starts at 6:30pm.Members can enter their unique membersâ access code to book tickets. Find yours in My Tortoise > My Membership in the Tortoise app.If you have any questions or get stuck, please read our FAQs, or get in touch with us at memberhelp@tortoisemedia.comRead our ThinkIn code of conduct.What is a Tortoise ThinkIn?A ThinkIn is not another panel discussion. It is a forum for civilised disagreement. It is a place where everyone has a seat at the (virtual) table. Itâs where we get to hear what you think, drawn from your experience, energy and expertise. It is the heart of what we do at Tortoise.
thinkin
This ThinkIn has been made possible by our founding partnership with Fora. Weâve become used to eating what we want, but our increasingly globalised and meaty diet, is taking its toll. The worldâs population is growing but if weâre serious about the climate crisis, we need to get used to a new style of eating. Is it possible to enjoy food â as we do now â and care about the planet? Our special guests are: Gizzi Erskine, chef and TV personality Morten Toft Bech, Founder, The Meatless Farm Company Ruth Rogers MBE, chef and owner of The River CafĂ© Patrick Holden, the Founding Director of the Sustainable Food Trust Chair: Merope Mills, Editor and Partner, Tortoise What is a Tortoise ThinkIn? A ThinkIn is not another panel discussion. It is a forum for civilised disagreement. Modelled on what we call a âleader conferenceâ in the UK (or an editorial board in the US), it is a place where everyone has a seat at the table. Itâs where we get to hear what you think, drawn from your experience, energy and expertise. Itâs where, together, we sift through what we know to come to a clear, concise point of view. It is the heart of what we do at Tortoise. Drinks from 6.00pm, starts promptly at 6.30pm. If you are late to a ThinkIn you can âSlinkInâ! If you would like to contribute to this ThinkIn, let us know by emailing thinkin@tortoisemedia.com We film our Thinkins so we can watch them back, edit the best bits and share them with members who werenât there in person. Members can find their ThinkIn booking code in My Tortoise, under My Membership.
Net Zero Sensemaker
By pushing for more homegrown food, the Truss government is squandering a rare opportunity to make British farming greener post Brexit
Net Zero Sensemaker
How the UKâs food giants are missing their food waste targets.
Sensemaker
What just happened
Cheaper food doesnât always mean better food. Products that cost less in monetary terms often have a higher cost elsewhere. The Tortoise Better Food Index â a ranking of food companies based on environmental, health and transparency metrics â aims to make the true cost of what we eat more visible
Net Zero Sensemaker
Food is the second biggest emitter of manmade greenhouse gases. But many UK food companies donât reveal the scale of their supply chain emissions.
What just happened
Net Zero Sensemaker
The UK is using its limited land badly. Government plans wonât make agriculture change fast enough
Sensemaker
What just happened