Periodic Reporting for period 2 - FOOD TRAILS (Building pathways towards FOOD 2030-led urban food policies)
Periodo di rendicontazione: 2022-04-16 al 2023-10-15
Meeting the challenges of providing European citizens with affordable, safe, and nutritious food and of creating healthier and more sustainable City Region Food Systems raises the need for the development of integrated urban food policies that can engage with the complexity of the food system.
Food Trails is a four-year Horizon 2020 project aiming to transform urban food systems in 11 cities, in the field of the front-running policy framework of FOOD 2030 and of Farm to Fork EU Strategy.
The project is also rooted in the Milan Urban Food Policy Pact (MUFPP). Indeed, the overall objective of the Food Trails project is to translate the Pact's commitments to integrated urban food policies into concrete measurable, and long-term progress toward more resilient, safe, fair, and diverse urban food systems in Europe.
11 EU cities, with 3 universities and 5 international organisations active on food, are co-designing pilot actions as leverage points for FOOD 2030 urban food policies development with an expected impact on the quality of life of 8 million EU citizens.
Each partner city set up a living lab that enables collaboration between local authorities and the wider range of local stakeholders to design food policy actions to empower the community; make the farm-to-fork journey sustainable; promote the reduction of food waste; promote environmentally friendly behavior change and ensure people have healthy and secure diets.
Food Trails facilitates collaboration among cities and researchers to encourage knowledge sharing, replication, and scaling up of best practices.
One of the project’s key aims is to strengthen the network of cities committed to changing their food systems to be more sustainable and beneficial. Food Trails aims to achieve this goal by transforming mayors into trendsetters to generate impacts among a wider set of cities.
Food Trails is a four-year Horizon 2020 project aiming to transform urban food systems in 11 cities, in the field of the front-running policy framework of FOOD 2030 and of Farm to Fork EU Strategy.
The project is also rooted in the Milan Urban Food Policy Pact (MUFPP). Indeed, the overall objective of the Food Trails project is to translate the Pact's commitments to integrated urban food policies into concrete measurable, and long-term progress toward more resilient, safe, fair, and diverse urban food systems in Europe.
11 EU cities, with 3 universities and 5 international organisations active on food, are co-designing pilot actions as leverage points for FOOD 2030 urban food policies development with an expected impact on the quality of life of 8 million EU citizens.
Each partner city set up a living lab that enables collaboration between local authorities and the wider range of local stakeholders to design food policy actions to empower the community; make the farm-to-fork journey sustainable; promote the reduction of food waste; promote environmentally friendly behavior change and ensure people have healthy and secure diets.
Food Trails facilitates collaboration among cities and researchers to encourage knowledge sharing, replication, and scaling up of best practices.
One of the project’s key aims is to strengthen the network of cities committed to changing their food systems to be more sustainable and beneficial. Food Trails aims to achieve this goal by transforming mayors into trendsetters to generate impacts among a wider set of cities.
Between spring 2022 and autumn 2023, the partners of the Food Trails project took crucial steps and carried out targeted activities to promote sustainable and innovative food policies in the 11 pilot cities.
The partnership produced 9 deliverables, including some pivotal ones that narrate the experimentation conducted in the Living Labs over two years of activity. Among them, two reports on impact analysis methodologies were developed six months in advance to align data collection methodology with impact analysis, ensuring consistency and effectiveness in evaluating the actions taken.
The 11 Living Labs successfully implemented 31 pilot actions to influence the 11 cities involved in either launching new food policies or pursuing the implementation of food policy actions. The period was indeed very fruitful for the approval of urban food policies: Food Trails supported the launch of 5 food policies (in Bergamo, Birmingham, Bordeaux Metropole, Funchal, and Thessaloniki), extending the number of cities with official active urban food policies to 8. A Food Council in Thessaloniki was created to facilitate the dialogue with stakeholders and advance the creation of an urban food policy.
The narrative and evolution of the Living Labs are documented in an Interim and Final Report. The interim report documented the initial phase, focusing on the co-design and initiation of the 31 pilot actions, while the final report provided a critical analysis of these actions by researchers. Cross-cutting managers and researchers also contributed with recommendations to ensure that the Living Labs can operate beyond the project's conclusion, with a particular perspective on the 4 priorities of the Food 2030 strategy.
Food Trails anticipated the impact analysis methodology based on 3 tools: the Theory of Change to plan and monitor medium and long-term goals; MUFPP and RUAF indicators applied to the 11 cities, along with data collection plans.
A pan-European Investor Lab – the space for discussion and listening for investors – produced a roadmap for scaling Impact Investment in urban food systems. In support of the Investor Lab, an Investor Service Model was developed to assess the willingness of cities to collaborate and invest, along with an Impact Measurement framework to evaluate the contribution of investors to food policies.
To expand local Living Labs to innovative private entities, a Call for Solutions for startups/SMEs was launched, attracting 200 companies and among these 23 were selected for the Matchmaking Day with cities in May 2023.
Food Trails then worked on European advocacy through a high-level event in Brussels in March 2023, where political representatives of the cities voiced their needs and claimed their crucial role in improving local food systems. Two policy briefs were also produced: “The Role of Cities in shaping food environments" and “Budgeting urban food policies”.
In collaboration with 4 other projects of the Food2030 Family, a joint policy brief was created on how to keep Living Labs active after their conclusion – a key cross-cutting issue among the funded projects.
As for knowledge sharing in cities and regions, replication visits between Food Trails cities took place, knowledge-sharing workshops were organized among cities, food experts, and researchers, and planning was initiated to engage other cascading cities and prepare a handbook for the final phase.
Finally, there was no shortage of live events, in fact, in September 2022, during Terra Madre organised by Slow Food in Turin, an International Conference and an Exhibition focused on food policies were organized. Partners consolidated their knowledge during an annual meeting in Thessaloniki (Nov 2023) and two mid-year meetings in Almere and in Milan, working on new content through workshops and interactive sessions. Food Trails partners also worked in preparation for the final dissemination phase: video shoots were planned in the 11 cities, a comprehensive knowledge dissemination program was structured, including podcasts and webinars, and actions were initiated to update the exploitation plan to maximize the project's impact in the long term.
The partnership produced 9 deliverables, including some pivotal ones that narrate the experimentation conducted in the Living Labs over two years of activity. Among them, two reports on impact analysis methodologies were developed six months in advance to align data collection methodology with impact analysis, ensuring consistency and effectiveness in evaluating the actions taken.
The 11 Living Labs successfully implemented 31 pilot actions to influence the 11 cities involved in either launching new food policies or pursuing the implementation of food policy actions. The period was indeed very fruitful for the approval of urban food policies: Food Trails supported the launch of 5 food policies (in Bergamo, Birmingham, Bordeaux Metropole, Funchal, and Thessaloniki), extending the number of cities with official active urban food policies to 8. A Food Council in Thessaloniki was created to facilitate the dialogue with stakeholders and advance the creation of an urban food policy.
The narrative and evolution of the Living Labs are documented in an Interim and Final Report. The interim report documented the initial phase, focusing on the co-design and initiation of the 31 pilot actions, while the final report provided a critical analysis of these actions by researchers. Cross-cutting managers and researchers also contributed with recommendations to ensure that the Living Labs can operate beyond the project's conclusion, with a particular perspective on the 4 priorities of the Food 2030 strategy.
Food Trails anticipated the impact analysis methodology based on 3 tools: the Theory of Change to plan and monitor medium and long-term goals; MUFPP and RUAF indicators applied to the 11 cities, along with data collection plans.
A pan-European Investor Lab – the space for discussion and listening for investors – produced a roadmap for scaling Impact Investment in urban food systems. In support of the Investor Lab, an Investor Service Model was developed to assess the willingness of cities to collaborate and invest, along with an Impact Measurement framework to evaluate the contribution of investors to food policies.
To expand local Living Labs to innovative private entities, a Call for Solutions for startups/SMEs was launched, attracting 200 companies and among these 23 were selected for the Matchmaking Day with cities in May 2023.
Food Trails then worked on European advocacy through a high-level event in Brussels in March 2023, where political representatives of the cities voiced their needs and claimed their crucial role in improving local food systems. Two policy briefs were also produced: “The Role of Cities in shaping food environments" and “Budgeting urban food policies”.
In collaboration with 4 other projects of the Food2030 Family, a joint policy brief was created on how to keep Living Labs active after their conclusion – a key cross-cutting issue among the funded projects.
As for knowledge sharing in cities and regions, replication visits between Food Trails cities took place, knowledge-sharing workshops were organized among cities, food experts, and researchers, and planning was initiated to engage other cascading cities and prepare a handbook for the final phase.
Finally, there was no shortage of live events, in fact, in September 2022, during Terra Madre organised by Slow Food in Turin, an International Conference and an Exhibition focused on food policies were organized. Partners consolidated their knowledge during an annual meeting in Thessaloniki (Nov 2023) and two mid-year meetings in Almere and in Milan, working on new content through workshops and interactive sessions. Food Trails partners also worked in preparation for the final dissemination phase: video shoots were planned in the 11 cities, a comprehensive knowledge dissemination program was structured, including podcasts and webinars, and actions were initiated to update the exploitation plan to maximize the project's impact in the long term.
Food Trails is setting the scene on the role of cities as drivers of change in food system transformation. By establishing a city-centric approach to the work of the project, Food Trails is creating a unique example of how local authorities can be supported by scientific partners and frontrunning organizations in the set-up of Living Labs, co-design of pilots, and urban food policies definition. The goal of the project is to build a common pathway toward food policies that can act at the local level, exploiting the potential of each specific context and integrating into this process European policies and frameworks such as FOOD 2030.
Connecting local authorities, scientific partners, and competent stakeholders with strong expertise in food system sustainability are proving to be a successful strategy, providing municipalities with updated tools and theoretical background. Food Trails cities are working to enhance the political commitment at the local level, laying the foundation for a long-lasting shift in the governance of the local food systems, in the same way, the project partners established fruitful relations with other EU-funded projects, cities initiatives, and institutions on these issues.
The project will continue consolidating this approach, making use of the final period to launch more communications, events, workshops, advocacy work with influential EU stakeholders.
Connecting local authorities, scientific partners, and competent stakeholders with strong expertise in food system sustainability are proving to be a successful strategy, providing municipalities with updated tools and theoretical background. Food Trails cities are working to enhance the political commitment at the local level, laying the foundation for a long-lasting shift in the governance of the local food systems, in the same way, the project partners established fruitful relations with other EU-funded projects, cities initiatives, and institutions on these issues.
The project will continue consolidating this approach, making use of the final period to launch more communications, events, workshops, advocacy work with influential EU stakeholders.