Øistein Thorsen
CEO
Øistein is a passionate advocate for resilient, ethical and regenerative food systems, with a focus on animal-based production. Raised in East Africa, he witnessed firsthand the devastating impact of food system failures, inspiring a career dedicated to sustainability. As FAI’s CEO, Øistein advises some the world’s largest brands, leveraging science and expertise to drive meaningful impact for people, animals and the planet.
In his role he has supported the regenerative transition of FAI’s beef grazing farm, developed and delivered regenerative training courses and field visits for executives, and designed regenerative initiatives focused on beef, dairy and leather supply chains.
Øistein is a University of London graduate in Development and African Studies and holds a master’s in international political economics from the London School of Economics (LSE), both undertaken to better understand the root causes of poverty, conflict and famine.
He began to gain a deeper and more specific appreciation of food’s potential power to heal and connect us with each other, our cultures and our planet in the early 2000s. This led to his vision of helping solve interconnected social and environmental crises through the promotion of inner and outer regeneration; a vision he has been pursuing at FAI since 2012.
Øistein is a Norwegian and US citizen who has lived, worked and studied in Kenya, Sudan, Norway, Ethiopia, the UK and USA, and currently lives in Brooklyn, New York.
Looking through the lens of resilience changes how corporate sustainability initiatives are resourced, valued and prioritised.
Rather than being seen as ‘nice-to-have’ programmes, they become part of the operational toolkit for building stronger, more secure and resilient supply chains.
The issues that have long defined the sustainability agenda are becoming increasingly important as food businesses face a more volatile risk environment.
Climate disruption, disease outbreaks, geopolitical instability and acute resource insecurity are turning what once looked like long-term ambitions into immediate actions necessary to ensure security of supply.
This is why resilience matters.
It gives companies and governments a more practical way to act on sustainability.
Where sustainability targets can sometimes feel broad, aspirational or reputational, resilience connects the same agenda to a series of more dynamic and urgent operational decisions: how to reduce risk exposure, strengthen suppliers, maintain supply and keep production systems functioning under pressure.
Resilience is providing companies with a practical way to align long-term sustainability goals with the urgent operational and commercial decisions required to achieve them.
Øistein Thorsen
The rise of resilience
In recent years, sustainability has largely lived in the world of corporate responsibility, brand positioning and voluntary commitments. While it shaped the conversation and direction of travel, it often sat slightly outside the operational decisions determining how supply chains are built and managed.
That separation is becoming harder to maintain as supply systems designed for efficiency are increasingly tested by their vulnerability to risks like disease outbreaks, climate volatility, trade disruption or shortages of inputs.
The People’s Republic of China’s latest Five-Year Plan illustrates this shift well by elevating food security as a strategic priority, fundamental to the resilience of the country’s economy, alongside energy, infrastructure and manufacturing capability. Climate volatility, land degradation, water scarcity and reliance on imports are now viewed as urgent and serious security risks affecting productivity, affordability and long-term food security.
The EU’s new Livestock Strategy also puts resilience at its centre. The strategy views resilience not just as a farm or farmer’s ability to recover from a shock, but rather, the livestock farming system’s ability to anticipate risks, reduce vulnerabilities, adapt to structural change and continue providing safe, sustainable and affordable food under increasingly difficult conditions.
The strategy provides a bridge between the goal of securing EU protein self-sufficiency, commercial competitiveness and public trust, with the need to uphold high standards of environmental performance, animal welfare and regional diversity.
Viewed through the lens of resilience, these issues are framed as mutually reinforcing goals.
Resilience is a concern that turns sustainability into commercial action
Looking through the lens of resilience changes how corporate sustainability initiatives are resourced, valued and prioritised. Rather than being seen as ‘nice-to-have’ programmes, they become part of the operational toolkit for building stronger, more secure and resilient supply chains.
For example, promoting regenerative agriculture:
Practices such as adaptive grazing, improved pasture management and enhanced nutrient cycling can reduce dependence on purchased fertilisers, feed and other external inputs, helping farmers maintain profitability during periods of price volatility
Investing in soil health and ecosystem function helps maintain the productive capacity of land, reducing the risk of declining yields associated with soil degradation and climate stress
Another example is investing in animal welfare. Poor welfare rarely exists in isolation and often reflects underlying vulnerabilities within a production system — whether excessive biological pressures, poor environmental conditions or inadequate housing and management. In this context, effective welfare management and outcomes monitoring works as an early warning and supplier risk management system.
For example, driving value through poultry welfare:
Reducing wing damage in modern chicken production is good for the welfare of the birds and results in increased yield, reduced waste and improved product quality, creating substantial value at commercial scale
Providing environmental enrichment improves opportunities for natural behavior and mobility. In chicken production, this has been found to reduce culls, generating returns of around 9:1, demonstrating how investments in welfare can strengthen both productivity and system resilience
We also see this supply security emerge from implementing sustainability and welfare assurance schemes.
In China, there is growing demand and uptake of the IQC cage-free egg standard, developed in partnership with FAI. Consumer demand for differentiated higher welfare products is only part of the reason. The growth also reflects a shift in how large companies view third-party standards: not only as a way to meet consumer demand, but as a practical route to reduce operational and supply chain risk.
Certified production systems tend to operate to higher standards and typically require tighter management, clearer protocols and better oversight. In other words, they provide greater assurance not only about particular sustainability outcomes, but also about the reliability, consistency and overall robustness of the production system.
What this means for businesses
The challenge for businesses is no longer simply to set ambitious sustainability commitments but to build supply chains capable of continuing to deliver when conditions become less predictable. This requires a detailed understanding of where fragility exists, strong supplier capability and relationships, good use of data and monitoring and a practical and commercial approach to managing risk and driving improvement.
This is where FAI plays a critical role
For the last 20 years we have partnered with food businesses to build sustainable, resilient supply chains. From supplier training, and welfare assessments to regenerative agriculture and data platforms, we help clients manage risk across complex biological supply system.
Resilience is not replacing sustainability, it’s a concern that provides urgency, focus and funding to deliver it.
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