Finding a future in food, in and around Quito

In a humid room in the hills of Ecuador, filled with the earthy aroma of fresh substrate, rows of mushrooms slowly grow toward harvest. Among them are Melissa Vélez and Arcy Constante. Two young entrepreneurs who light up as they talk about MICORICUY, the company they built together. They grow edible and medicinal mushrooms.

Why having your own business sounds "dreamy", but often isn't

Starting a business in Ecuador is hardly ever plain sailing. And although entrepreneurship is often seen as a way to create jobs and stimulate economic growth, in Ecuador it is also driven by a more basic feeling: "what else is there for me, if I need to earn a living?". Even in one of the world's most biodiverse countries, opportunities are uneven.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, between March and December 2020, an estimated half a million jobs were lost. Five years later, informal work accounts for 58 % of employment, the highest figure in nearly two decades.

Falling incomes, energy shortages and higher VAT charges are further squeezing household finances and the margins of small businesses. And yet, according to the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor¹, 32.7% of Ecuadorians aged 18 to 64 were starting or managing a business in 2023-2024, a rate that, across Latin America, is typically three times higher than in Europe. The reason, GEM suggests, is not that Latin Americans are more entrepreneurial. It is that, in Europe, stable employment tends to exist. In Ecuador, it increasingly does not.

Generation Food: testing what is possible

Melissa, a microbiologist, and Arcy, a business owner, are part of this, let's call it, a new generation of entrepreneurs, who keep pushing forward even while facing overlapping local and global economic, social, environmental, and political challenges.

We'll start with how Melissa's and Arcy's paths crossed. Both participated in Generation Food (in Spanish known as Generación Alimentación or Generación A), an agrifood incubator and accelerator that Rikolto designs and organises with local partners in cities.

Food systems are often described in terms of crops and calories. In reality, however, they determine who earns an income, who eats well and who bears the environmental consequences. Rather than being side effects, overproduction alongside undernourishment, food waste, degraded land and deep economic inequity are signs of a system under immense strain.

Generation Food is the room where the most exciting and promising business ideas receive the "down to earth" data, and the "wings" to accelerate their grow.

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