Introduction to Lukas Dillinger, his journey and how he became a food system designer. For you to get inspired! 🙂

Food Innovation Strategist, a Food System Designer and a Food Preneur, Educator & Speaker from Germany 

This is my story of how I became what I am today. Let's start before I was born.

• My great grandfather had an ale house and my grandparents were farmers. It seems that there is still the food topic in my DNA - just with a totally different approach on dealing with food everyday. 
• Growing up in a region with the first national park of Germany deep in nature - I will talk about this later in an episode on how I found innovation by dealing with my own roots. 
• After graduating from high school I really wanted to become a chef, but when I realized the working conditions there were quite horrible most of the time I started a totally different way - which would bring me back to my roots and ambitions somehow in the future. 
• Luckily I grew up in a household and family where qualitative, regional, seasonal and organic food played an important role. But the first time I really came in contact with the food industry directly was by writing my bachelor thesis on craft beer breweries in Bavaria. It is not about if you like this kind of beer or not, it is always a matter of taste - here I realized the power of diversity - in this case within the beer sector. Really, the craft beer trend in this region helped breweries to get more attention and innovation ambitions. 
• From there: working mostly within marketing and digitalization - agencies, corporates and so on. My colleagues in the different companies had one thing in common - they always told me: “you're talking about food the whole day and that I should do something with food professionally!” Still true. 
• So I made the decision in 2018 to go to the university of gastronomic sciences, the slow food university in northern italy. Which totally changed my life and perspective: dealing with food the whole day and all around the world, with so many courses on the topic and so many new insights into food systems and their people. 
• What I liked most was of course eating and the many different gastronomic experiences wherever I have been to. When you realize the potential of transformative innovation of gastronomy you will see the world of gastronomy with different eyes.
• When when arrived back home after studying abroad: regional manager at start-up - marketing small scale food companies while establishing a digital platform for transparent supply chains.
• And then hired by Free State of Bavaria to write a future concept and strategy on how to implement sustainability on food within regions. And so I established a pilot project in my home region which is called the Culinary Region of Lower Bavaria within two years. This is kind of the base and philosophy which led me to curate this online course about food system design. With the aim to show as many people as possible how to transform, innovate and redesign the food system they live and work in.

What I learned from the last years:

• Change is hard for everybody - so they are eager to change not, so you have to be the change. Which means, if you want to have an impact - you have to set up systems which enable people to be part of an ongoing transformation. Which I call specifically in the food sector the so called food innovation ecosystems.

Today and until now

• I have a master's degree from the University of Gastronomic Sciences in Northern Italy and I am part of several food innovation ecosystems in Europe 
• Within my work I am building food value networks and I am involved in educational work and knowledge transfer on regenerative food systems. 
• My overall aim and purpose is to support actors to become part of a sustainable and regenerative food system where people and the planet can thrive and work hand in hand. 
• For the last six years I have been developing the discipline Food System Design on a regional, national and European level.
• Exploring food systems all over the world: from start-ups to corporations - from regions to countries - I gained so much knowledge about food systems and all the people working in this sector - from all different parts of the food value chain. 
• And a feeling for the urgent need to change the system. 

All those different parts combined led me to become a food system designer. All these experiences have become a holistic approach on how to look at food systems (and kind of feel them) and an urgent need for caring about and regenerating them - with my approach on food system design. My work as a food system designer is setting up an innovation ecosystem within a regional context. 

What's my purpose here? 

For me everybody should have the chance to find his or her own way to good, clean and fair food. To make this happen, you need to design different food systems which enable all of us to do so. For a collaborative food system we need bridge builders and this is my overall role here. And I really hope that you will become one of the next bridge builders, too. Our food systems need you.