Food Systems in European Cities

Diversity of European cities and regions creates barriers to the demonstration of systemic food-related innovative approaches valuable in so different contexts. Objective of FoodE is to accelerate the growth of citizen-led City/Region food systems (CRFS) by bringing local initiatives across Europe together, as well as co-developing and disseminating a range of tools - co-designed with academia, citizens, and food system start-ups - to ensure that the most up-to-date cross-sectorial knowledge is applied. Start-ups will also provide an in-depth understanding of the needs of the key stakeholders, making resilient citizen-driven food systems happen. The key challenge is then to aggregate the most sustainable models of CRFS and enable co-creation of innovative pilot experiences, fostering the health and wellbeing of European citizens. This challenge will be tackled by setting a co-created mechanism, based on Citizen Science and Responsible Research and Innovation principles, where public authorities, citizens, business actors and non-profit organisations share ideas, tools, best practices and new models, supporting cities in becoming innovative food hubs. The outputs of FoodE will impact on job creation, promotion of local economy, strengthening the role of local communities in complying with Sustainable Development Goals, as well as identifying and strengthening relations between the different actors of the food chain. The way used by FoodE to achieve this goals consists of the following steps: Define an operational methodology for the assessment of CRFS. Promote cross-pollination between European CRFS. Contribute to increase access to affordable, safe and nutritious food. Create a tool mobilising CRFS stakeholders in sustainability assessment. Upscale the output to other EU cities.