Founded by Dan Kittredge in 2010.
A life-long organic farmer and child of leaders in the organic movement, as a young man he concluded that nutritional value in food was the high ground where many wings of the broader food movement (organic, biodynamic, local, permaculture, agroecology, sustainable, regenerative) could coalesce; an objective that all of these communities of practice could agree upon and expand. There also existed a gap in understanding of nutrient density is, let alone how to support and build it into our food supply chain.
Integrating wisdom found in the Acres USA community, Dan began teaching courses in “Principles of Biological Systems” to growers across the Northeastern part of the U.S. through the BFA.
Over the years, invitations to teach the course spread west across the U.S. until in 2018, requests came from European countries for course presentations and deeper engagement.
Additionally, and in partnership with NOFA/Mass, the BFA initiated the Soil and Nutrition Conference in 2012, its landmark event bringing together community around cutting-edge science, as backdrop for the broad topics of soil, agriculture and nutrition to connect soil health to human health. The conference continues annually to this day, with registrants from 46 countries, attending virtually and in-person.
In 2013, the BFA started its system of local chapters as the desire for others to lead in their communities to build nutrient dense food supplies locally emerged. To date, there are twenty-five BFA chapters.
The Bionutrient Meter
(The Gizmo)
As Dan presented the BFA concepts of nutrient density to the agricultural and scientific communities, as well as to large and small groups of growers, he shared the vision for how self-interest and economic incentives through focusing on nutrient density could transform the food supply. He argued that this would not only serve to dramatically affect environmental health through changing practices in agriculture, but also systemic benefits to human health globally simply by increasing the nutritional value of the food.
The concept of giving consumers the ability to make purchasing decisions based upon nutritional value of food measured with a hand-held spectrometer was presented and met with enthusiasm, curiosity and some skepticism.
Work to bring this concept to fruition began in 2016, with Dan engaging and partnering with independent scientists, nutritionists, donors and leaders in food and agriculture.
By 2017, the BFA developed the first prototype of what is now the Bionutrient Meter, a hand-held, non-invasive consumer-priced spectrometer that can be used to get relative nutritional scores off of food at point of purchase with a flash of light.
Organic Growth… Bionutriently!
2018
In 2018, we built our first lab in Ann Arbor, Michigan in partnership with Our-sci, LLC to begin developing the definitions of nutrient density that would be needed to calibrate the meter. In that year the lab tested two crops, carrots and spinach, and showed categorically that nutrient variation within crop type is massive.
2019
The BFA established a second lab in California in collaboration with Chico State, and as well worked with 35 growers across the U.S. to document connections between management practices, environmental conditions, soil health metrics, and crop nutrient levels. Four more crops were added to the testing protocols. The first generation of the Bionutrient Meter was shipped to interested parties around the world.
2020
Another lab was started in France in partnership with Eco-sens (formerly Valorex) to meet the demand for deeper collaboration with the work of the BFA. The lab expanded the crops sampled to 21 different types, as well as worked with 150 growers to expand the data sets connecting management, soil health and nutrient density.
2021
We established the Bionutrient Institute (replacing the Real Food Campaign), and a more robust lab near Boston, MA to bring definitions of nutrient density to a final market level. The Boston lab was additionally established to engineer the next generation of instruments for mass production and implementation in market and field to bring transparency to the entire food supply.
Also, in 2021 the second generation of the Bionutrient Meter, calibrated to 8 crops, and shared conclusive evidence from our work of previous years showing the direct connections between management practices on farms, soil carbon and biological activity and nutrient variation in food.
“We now stand at the precipice of accomplishing our primary objectives. We have shown the connections between soil health and food quality. We have also shown that a hand-held, consumer-priced meter can be developed to determine relative nutritional value in food with a flash of light, and on open-sourced data platforms.”
Dan Kittredge, Founder of Bionutrient Food Association
In our next five years we expect to have established a framework for a new food supply; One that prioritizes nutritional value, and in so doing is able to realize the potential of agriculture to systemically improve climate and ecosystem function, as well as human health.