Conclusion: Mapping a path ahead for food businesses3 Organizations should adopt an approach that embraces the potential for system-wide change, but with the flexibility to cope with real-world complexity. Embedding resilience and sustainability as core sourcing priorities is the first step. From there, companies can chart a practical path forward, based on the strategies outlined in this white paper: 1. Build sourcing maturity to scale up for success, based on a three-step maturity ladder (see here). 2. Identify strategic sourcing pathways for scale: spec-anchored sourcing and/or decoupled sourcing (see here). 3. Calibrate strategy and prioritize sourcing pathway , based on each commodity’s sourcing context and characteristics (see here). 4. Strengthen partnerships and align corporate operations, to help unlock change at scale (see here). Executives can help spearhead this shift (see Box 16).Planning for the future requires careful thinking about every aspect of how companies procure, invest and collaborate along supply chains. Strategies for executives to drive change BOX 16 Chief Executive Officers –Embed resilience and sustainability as core sourcing priorities and set corporate direction to define how bold the company intends to be. –Enable and encourage engagement in shared initiatives such as pooled platforms or outcome-based collaborations. –Back corporate action with the necessary capital – breakthrough models cannot scale up on pilot budgets. –Empower procurement, sustainability and finance teams to co-develop structural solutions. Chief Procurement Officers –Define the maturity level to target for each priority commodity. –Assess the level of dependency of key commodities to calibrate the resilience strategy and determine the right sourcing pathway (spec-anchored or decoupled). –Establish enduring commercial approaches such as multi-year contracts, risk-sharing mechanisms and co-investment strategies with partners. –Formalize collaboration with Chief Sustainability Officers so that great pilots don’t die at handoff. Chief Sustainability Officers –Shape projects for expansion, ensuring early- stage initiatives have viable transition models. –Ground sustainability requirements in operational and market realities. –Collaborate with procurement to identify priority commodities and how their maturity and dependency profiles shape the resilience strategy and sourcing pathway. –Partner with procurement to ensure demand signals are deliverable, verifiable and cost-aligned. –Work across companies and coalitions to envision scalable approaches rather than bespoke pilots. First Movers Coalition for Food: CEO Lessons for the Future of Food Procurement 22

First Movers Coalition for Food 2026