Looking Back on a Year of Shared Progress 

Greetings,

As we turn the page on 2025 and embark on a new year, it is important to take a moment to look back. Before we share reflections on this past year, however, we want to acknowledge the emotional weight many in our region are carrying right now. Recent events have been deeply unsettling for individuals, families, and communities.

Even in this moment of uncertainty, we believe it’s important to recognize the progress made together and the path we continue to build—together. We write to thank all our partners and collaborators for that progress.

Five years ago, leading Minnesota-based companies and innovators launched MBOLD on a simple belief: the challenges facing our global food system are too large for any one organization to solve alone. Real solutions require shared leadership, shared risk and collective action. 2025 was a banner year on that journey.

Growing Global Challenges  

The pressures facing food and agriculture continued to intensify this past year. 2025 was marked by both unprecedented economic disruption and rapid innovation. Climate pressures are creating new challenges for farmers and threatening the stability of food supply chains. Over the long-term, global populations continue to grow, and demand for critical food – especially proteins -- is expected to increase a staggering 50% by 2050.

MBOLD exists to take on complex, system-level challenges by bringing together leaders from across the food and agriculture value chain and partnering globally. Progress happens when we channel collective strengths into shared strategic action. In 2025, a robust array of partners and collaborators made meaningful progress on multiple fronts:

Driving Protein Innovation: We launched the MBOLD Protein Catalyst to drive innovation and sustainability solutions across protein value chains. We intentionally take a “both/and” approach—exploring ways to lower the footprint of animal proteins while also fueling the market success of plant-based proteins.

The Catalyst mobilizes leadership from our backyard to the world, fostering innovation, advancing pre-competitive research, and building new commercial markets. Together, large and small companies, trade organizations, research institutions and others are charting a new course for driving innovation. We look forward to welcoming more partners from the U.S. and around the world in 2026.

We also made progress establishing Minnesota as a global hub for protein innovation. Last fall, MBOLD co-hosted the Bridge2Food North America Summit, bringing more than 300 protein leaders from around the world to Minnesota to accelerate practical solutions. We will co-host the summit again in 2026.

In addition, we made concrete progress evaluating opportunities for food and feed crops—such as dry beans, oats, winter camelina, and industrial hemp—to meet market needs while creating new opportunities for farmers. These collaborations are building industry knowledge and advancing progress on key regulatory fronts.

Helping Companies Scale Up: Startups play a critical role in driving innovation. We have pivoted our signature Bold Growth mentorship initiative to focus squarely on protein innovation and opened participation to protein innovation companies around the world. We were excited to help accelerate the growth of two Canadian firms —Prairie Fava and Three Farmers Foods —as well as Minnesota-based Laketown Mills last year.

Bold Growth alumni also continued to succeed in 2025. Hearty congratulations go to Canada-based Three Farmers Foods, which doubled sales of its plant-based snacks, expanded production capacity, and grew its team. So Good So You was recognized by Inc. 5000 as one of the country’s fastest-growing companies for the sixth year in a row. Bizzy Cold Brew expanded distribution to 10,000 stores across all 50 states. And Sentera was acquired by John Deere.

Cultivating Agricultural Resiliency: From the beginning, MBOLD has prioritized efforts to make the adoption of soil health and water stewardship practices more compelling and economically viable for farmers. We continue to focus on market development and risk management in collaboration with partners.

In 2025, we launched a new initiative to develop crop insurance coverage for multi-species crop rotations—addressing gaps in federal coverage and enabling farmers to test new rotations with greater confidence. We also made progress crafting pathways to scale up the cash cover crop winter camelina, with leadership from partners including the University of Minnesota, Cargill, Compeer Financial, AURI, and others.

Driving Flexible Film Circularity: Flexible films, like pallet wrap and shrink wrap, remain essential tools for transporting and storing goods across the economy. In 2025, the film recycling plant in Rogers, Minnesota, gained momentum under new leadership, and we identified additional strategies to increase recycling of these materials. We are now developing the next phase of work to further advance recycling and circularity in the year ahead.

Accelerating Momentum in 2026  

Minnesota has long played an outsized role in food, agriculture and innovation. Through MBOLD, that leadership is growing bolder. MBOLD continues to grow as a platform for building solutions together—more ideas, more partners, more leadership, and more connection.

We look forward to accelerating our momentum in 2026 alongside an expanding network of partners. We invite new collaborators to join us in shaping what’s next as we show the world what’s possible through collective leadership. Thank you for your commitment and for helping demonstrate the extraordinary things we can achieve together.

Jase Wagner, CEO Compeer Financial and MBOLD Chair

JoAnne Berkenkamp, MBOLD Managing Director

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