Innovation for sustainable development in the food industry: Retro and forward-looking innovation approaches to improve quality and healthiness

Sustainable development in the food industry requires companies to be more innovative with their products and supply chain as a strategy for developing healthier and higher quality food products, and achieving better economic, environmental, and social performance. A clear path to follow when companies decide to develop innovations for sustainability is still lacking, especially with a focus on quality and healthiness. This study analyzes six case studies in the food industry in Italy, identifying two innovative approaches towards sustainable development for quality and healthiness, namely, forward-looking innovation and retro-innovation. The first one represents a typical business model redesign oriented to sustainability, that is, developing new products and reconfiguring the supply chain processes for entering new market segments, applied mainly in smaller companies. The second one, indeed, implies a supply chain restructuring strategy while going back to traditional agricultural processes, especially applied in companies with standard or certified products. Both approaches target sustainability performances and allow an improvement of food quality and healthiness.