Fostering the urban food system transformation through innovative living labs implementation

The making of a new urban food plan: In Europe, food is available. But this doesn’t mean it will forever be secure, safe, affordable and nutritious. Currently, the EU food system is not sustainable with respect to the environment and economic and social aspects. In this context, the EU-funded FUSILLI project will transition towards sustainable food systems. It will put 12 cities around Europe in a knowledge sharing and learning network to address the challenges of the food system transformation. The overall aim of the project is to support the participant pan-European cities (and their peri-urban areas) with the aim to address through strong cooperation for knowledge sharing and mutual learning the challenges of the food system transformation.

Objective

The general aim of FUSILLI is to support the participant pan-European cities (and their peri-urban areas) with the aim to address by a strong cooperation for knowledge sharing and mutual learning the challenges of the food system transformation. The main objective is to build an urban food plan to reach an integrated and safe holistic transition towards healthy, sustainable secure, inclusive, equitable and cost-efficient food systems, through feasible and replicable innovative urban policies leading to deploy improving actions in all stages of the food value chain in line with the four FOOD 2030 policy priorities (Nutrition for sustainable and healthy diets; Climate-smart and environmentally sustainable food systems; Circularity and resource efficient food systems; and Innovation and empowerment of communities).

Each city will create or improve the development of a living lab, which is an open innovation ecosystem where concrete actions will be deployed to develop and implement urban food systems policies delivering on the four FOOD 2030 priorities. These living labs have an objective to solve with the implementation of different innovative actions through all the stages of the food chain: production and processing, distribution and logistics, consumption, food loss and waste, and governance. Living lab will involve several stakeholders representing all the actors in the food system at local level: it will have at least a public authority, industry partner (SME or association), consumer association and education.

A Knowledge Community will compile the current local initiatives to develop a catalogue of best practises to implement and exchange within the network of the participant living labs as well as other global initiatives.

Source: FUSILLI - European Commission 

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