Winston Churchill is credited for having once said, “Never let a good crisis go to waste.” A crisis like this one has the potential to create massive disruption in our food system, and we must act now to keep that from happening. However, it can also catalyze and accelerate innovation. We must strive to prevent the former and foster the latter.

Food distribution is one area that will be ripe for innovation when this is all over. We have all witnessed the aggressive rise of online ordering, restaurant and grocery delivery, meal kits, automated retail, and other new business models in recent years. Trends like these, accelerated by this pandemic, will radically transform food distribution in ways that affect product and service offerings, business models, and the value chains that enable them.

Accessibility of healthy, nutritious food is another area. As we seek to nourish the world to 2050 and beyond, we must work hard to ensure healthy food options are accessible, affordable, sustainable and viable. Today, they are not, and that that’s a problem we must solve.

Let’s move from anxiety to action. Let’s take steps to protect our food system today, but also adapt, grow and create a better future for tomorrow.