Topian is embracing a new era of food shaped at the heart of the desert, under the adapted concept of bringing more for less. This means producing higher quality food that has less impact on our environment. This is why we are introducing new methods that will enable us to help feed the world with our Future-to-table approach. We will explore new ways to help feed the world while taking care of our planet and shaping a sustainable future for food. So that everyone can enjoy more, with less. 

At Topian, we are looking to commercialize food grown locally, re-export premium goods, and source food products from qualified sustainable suppliers. We are scaling up the food system, improving food safety, reducing food waste, lowering food production costs, and promoting healthy dietary patterns. However, we know we cannot produce all the food we need, so we are focused on reducing food miles by importing the food we can’t produce locally from neighboring countries.  

Topian is intentionally designed to be a gateway into Saudi Arabia for modern and sustainable food production. We approached the development of food production pragmatically and are currently building modular commercial pilots for agriculture, aquaculture and novel foods. By doing this, we will test the best-in-class technologies and innovative solutions at scale, to find the best cost-efficiencies and quality. Unlike most incubation efforts where tests are only done at the level or on a large commercial scale, we are ideally positioned to fill the gap in between.

New technologies are urgently needed to feed humanity today and in decades to come. At Topian, we are developing and testing ways to improve food quantity and quality while reducing food production's environmental impact. One example is controlled-environment production systems, which can significantly reduce the water required to grow crops. Growing a kilo of tomatoes in an open field requires 60 liters of water. In a hydroponic greenhouse, we only need 15 liters. in a truly controlled-environment production system like the ones we're designing, we can reduce this to just four liters. We’re also beginning to use state-of-art biotechnology to promote responsible and sustainable aquafarming and use gene editing to develop varieties adapted to drought.

At NEOM we are working to create The Land of the Future. Food rests at the heart of this. Civilization has historically been dependent first and foremost on Food Security. We need to ensure that we can provide food innovatively and efficiently to match sustainable food delivery with demand. This is why we have five focus areas in our strategy: climate-proof agriculture, regenerative aquaculture, novel foods, personalized nutrition and sustainable food supply. These are essential to address the demands not only of society today, but also tomorrow.

For the last 10,000 years, farmers were asked to do one thing – produce more food. This has now changed. Farmers today must produce not only more but even better food. We are transforming food systems by developing new agricultural and aquacultural technologies and working with our partners to do ground-breaking R&D, create novel solutions and launch their products.

We have set up an innovation hub and testbed where companies can develop, demonstrate and implement new sustainable food technologies and services that can be built and scaled up to improve our food systems. We have created the region’s first Food Agritech Accelerator, to give start-ups around the world the seed funding they need to fund the seeding of the world.

NEOM will be achieving this goal first by locally producing the food that makes most environmental and economic sense, and second, by sourcing in the most sustainable way the categories of food that cannot at this time be produced in the region in a cost-efficient manner, for example because they require too much water. Through the way we grow, process, transport, distribute and consume food, NEOM will promote new approaches to enhancing our health and the environment. We want to achieve an optimal food system that can nourish both people and the planet.