Stay connected and join the FoodSHIFT+ email forum – the Rise Up email forum for multi-actor food partnerships across Europe and beyond.

Email FoodSHIFT+-subscribe@lists.riseup.net to be signed up by the platform.

Once subscribed, email FoodSHIFT+@lists.riseup.net to ask questions or share information and it will be received by the entire list.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Who can join this email forum?

Everyone involved in the FoodSHIFT2030 project, including the core project team, the FoodSHIFT Accelerator Labs (FALs), Fellow cities (FELs) and network partners. Multiple people from the same lab, partnership or organisation can sign up to the forum.

As the project comes to a close at the end of 2023, FoodSHIFT + has extended the invitation to all multi-actor food partnerships who have come across the project, attended workshops and webinars, and would like to stay connected with work happening across Europe.

Why join?

FoodSHIFT+ connects all those working across the FoodSHIFT network. It provides a platform for communication and knowledge sharing, a place to share challenges, questions, news and updates relevant to sustainable food systems and multi-actor partnerships.

How does it work?

Knowledge sharing made simple! Once you’re signed up, you receive emails straight to your inbox with no need to log in to check messages.

–       To sign up people need to email FoodSHIFT+-subscribe@lists.riseup.net

–       Once subscribed you can ask your questions or share info by emailing FoodSHIFT+@lists.riseup.net and it will be received by the entire list.

–       To unsubscribe from this list, email FoodSHIFT+-unsubscribe@lists.riseup.net.

What can I post about?

You are welcome to share anything related to your project which you believe would be of interest to the rest of the network, including relevant research, insights, and events, as well as particular challenges or questions you might have related to food system partnerships.

Topics might include:

• Questions on specific areas cities, councils, partnerships are struggling with e.g. how/whether to encourage citizen involvement in food partnerships; how to measure emissions saved from improved public procurement, how to work most effectively with businesses in a food partnership, etc.
• Examples of local success, developments you are proud of and would like to share, or need advice on
• Webinars and event news
• New reports and developments from other sector organisations
• International grants available on this theme
• Job posts
• Wider themes such as food governance, food citizen engagement and more

The size limit for messages is 500Kb, which means that users will not be able to share attachments in posts.

How often can I post?

You can post as often as you like, and remember to invite everyone within your local food partnership to sign up!

Will the forum be moderated?

Yes. The moderator will keep an eye out for posts that violate the forum’s user guidelines. Any such post will be removed by the moderator.

Can I use the forum to communicate with my assigned FoodSHIFT project partner?

No. This forum is not for sharing detailed project work and sensitive documents that relate to specific bilateral or multilateral work streams between FAls and FELs. This is not an internal communication channel to carry out FoodSHIFT related project work.

Can I use this forum as an archive and list/search materials for FoodSHIFT legacy work?

No. This forum does not work as a library of materials. It is not a mini site or a shared drive. When someone posts in the forum, you will receive an email but there is no website or page for you to access to search back for previous posts unless you have saved the emails personally.

User Guidelines

No Spam / Advertising / Self-promotion

This forum defines spam as unsolicited advertisement for goods, services and/or other web sites, or posts with little, or completely unrelated content.

Do not post copyright-infringing material

Providing or asking for information on how to illegally obtain copyrighted materials is forbidden, this also includes internal and confidential FoodSHIFT 2030 documents such as the Grant Agreement or Consortium Agreement

Do not post “offensive” posts, links or images

Any material which constitutes defamation, harassment, or abuse is strictly prohibited. Material that is sexually or otherwise obscene, racist, or otherwise overly discriminatory is not permitted on this forum.

Remain respectful of other members at all times

All posts should be professional and courteous. You have every right to disagree with your fellow community members and explain your perspective. However, you are not free to attack, degrade, insult, or otherwise belittle them or the quality of this community.

The post FoodSHIFT email forum appeared first on FoodSHIFT 2030.

The Berlin Lab with its partners Berlin Food Policy Council, agrathaer, ZALF and Baumhaus wants to support institutional learning within administration by promoting new ideas and approaches. To this end, the second workshop in the three-part workshop series took place on Friday, 25th of February 2022 with the target group of administration and civil society organisations from the Berlin-Brandenburg region. 

Complex challenges such as the food transformation can only be addressed with integrated approaches. System thinking is one of these approaches. Complex issues are interconnected. There are several actors in the system and their actions have a direct and/or indirect impact on each other. Systems thinking means to:

• Express a strategy and act on it.
• Engage and align different actors.
• Integrate health, environmental and equity concerns with economic success. 

“System thinking” was the focus of the first workshop with administrative representatives as a target group “administration”.

Strategic collaboration is a possible tool to translate systems thinking into effective cooperation and action. This is suitable for the food transformation and was therefore the focus of the 2nd workshop. We understand strategic collaboration as a deliberate, collective approach to tackling public problems or issues by building shared knowledge, developing innovative solutions and bringing about impactful change (Norris-Tirrell and Clay 2010: 5). The opposite of strategic collaboration can be described as ‘siloed’ activities. 

As an input, Beatrice Walthall (ZALF) shared practical advice for successful implementation of strategic collaboration that builds on Norris-Tirell and Clay’s years of experience. 

Prerequisites and principles of strategic collaboration

Strategic collaboration does not make sense in every case. The following preconditions for strategic collaboration should be in place:

1. legitimate and urgent need for collaboration,
2. sufficient actors with different perspectives on problem solving are involved,
3. competent and committed leadership,
4. competence for collaboration,
5. likelihood of fundamental change.

According to Norris-Tirell and Clay, for successful strategic cooperation, the following principles should be considered during implementation:

• Principle 1: Choose strategic cooperation wisely.
• Principle 2: Understanding the life cycle of strategic cooperation
• Principle 3: Strengthen leadership
• Principle 4: Weighing risk and reward transparently
• Principle 5: Emphasise results and impact

Inspiring examples from Lejre and Oostende

To inspire the participants, Berlin FAL invited Tina Unger (Municipality of Lejre) and Kathy Belpaeme (Ostend), who have already gained a lot of experience with cross-sectoral cooperation.

Tina Unger confirmed in her presentation that many aspects, such as food production, business development, rural development, health and environment are interlinked. In Lejre, the aim was to support smaller farmers and businesses. The result was, for example, their own regional “Lejre” milk (Arla) and a small new scale business network. In addition, there are now more jobs, more entrepreneurs and more liveable villages in Lejre. People are proud to live there and they have developed a sense of belonging to where they live. A collaboration between the municipality, Organic Denmark, local farmers and restaurateurs resulted in better national food legislation for small scale farmers. 

How was this achieved? Essentially, cross-sectoral cooperation was significant, as was building trust between stakeholders. Communication and building trust is a big time investment, but it pays off for further goals and projects. The cooperation was “top-down” as well as “bottom-up” and complemented each other well. The vision came from the municipality, but the citizens, farmers and local entrepreneurs supported the measures, developed new projects, and organised themselves. The main task for the public authority was communication, network building and ‘kicking stones off the way’ eg. within legislation. 

Kathy Belpaeme from the City of Ostend gave the example of the strategic cooperation between the city with the tourism and business association and illustrated how local food culture can be linked to sustainability. For example, she suggested that the annual fish festivals for locals and tourists should also focus on local fish. The tourism association took up these impulses and set the criterion that at least one local product should be offered at each stand. In addition, a shrimp festival is now organised, because shrimp croquettes are a local certified food. A Belgian celebrity chef additionally acts as an ambassador for local fish and sustainable food, addressing restaurant chefs. Another example is the “Veggie Challenge” for restaurants. The goal is to offer a diverse selection of healthy and sustainable meals to guests. An annual campaign has been set up to benefit restaurants that offer vegetarian menus. The restaurants are reported on the social media channel of the tourism association and fancy pictures of vegetarian menus are sent.

With its sufficient budget and staff, the tourism association has communicatively combined qualitative aspects such as environmental and resource protection and healthy nutrition with those of enjoyment. On the one hand, this increased the brand value of the city, and on the other hand, it brought the messages of sustainable nutrition to the people. 

Kathy Belpaeme’s approach to achieving these goals is described by herself as “step by step” to implement measures for the food system transformation in Oostende without overburdening the actors, such as local fishermen and restaurants. It is important that the cooperation partners are aware of everyone’s priorities and goals and include them so that win-win situations exist. 

Drafting a scenario for Strategic Collaboration

After the inputs from Tina and Kathy, the participants became active. They came up with two ideas for measures for a food system transformation and mapped them in the life cycle of Strategic Collaboration as introduced by Norris-Tirell and Clay (2010: 31). The individual stages in the life cycle make it easier to formulate targeted measures: 

• Stage 1: Exploration – The readiness of various possible partners to collaborate is explored. 
• Stage 2: Formation – Initial structures and processes are developed 
• Stage 3: Growth -. Participants build consensus on goals and begin implementation. 
• Stage 4: Maturity – Ideal state of collaboration with participants actively engaged, resources available and results shared. Fruits of cooperation are harvested and further actions are taken.
• Stage 5: (Successful) end of cooperation
• Stage 5b: Decline – At stage 4, it is determined that the goal of the cooperation cannot be achieved. Either the decision is made to end the cooperation (stage 5) or to renew the cooperation (stage 5c).
• Level 5c: Renewal – Reinvention of structure, processes, and outcomes with goal of re-entry into healthy collaboration

Key messages of the event 

1) Strategic collaboration is not always worthwhile: It is necessary to check whether the basic conditions are met (see above). Depending on the problem, in some cases a focused approach with specific expertise makes sense.

2) Many issues, such as food production, rural development, health and environment as sub-sectors of food policy, are interconnected. For this reason, cross-sectoral action should be taken. 

3) There is a need for partners from different sectors, with whom one can move forward in small steps towards a food system transformation without overburdening the partners.

Strategic collaboration – not only for established organisations

However, it is also true that anyone can “strategically collaborate” for a food transformation, as long as the principles are fulfilled and the requirements are met. Look around to see who can support you in your concerns and whether win-win situations arise for everyone.  After all, the development of innovative solutions and the initiation of a food system transformation can only be achieved together.

Source: Norris-Tirell, Dorothy and Clay, Joy A. (2010): Strategic Collaboration in Public and Nonprofit Administration. A Practice-Based Approach to Solving Shared Problems. New York: Routledge. 

The post Strategic Collaboration: collectively shaping the food system transformation appeared first on FoodSHIFT 2030.

Some FALs have asked to get more information about possible ways of getting funds for their innovators. This topic is very complex, as getting successful with fund raising and accessing financing requires many skills and knowledge.

This first webinar on the topic will be an introduction with short inputs from experts, and questions/answers short sessions. Participants will get basic knowledge about the specifications of setting up business models for social entrepreneurs, and a short introduction to 3 main sources of funds / finance: the crowdfunding, the impact investment, and the European funds.

To get deeper understanding and share their experiences in the funding/financing processes, the FALs will be invited to a next FAL2FAL webinar, on Friday 21 January, where there will be more time for deeper discussions, especially in the topics “business models for social entrepreneurs” and “crowdfunding”.

More FAL2FAL webinars on this topic will be organized in the future, based on expression of interest from the FALs.

Objectives
• Gaining knowledge about the social entrepreneurship funding / financing logics and timing
• Discovering the impacts investment logics and opportunities
• Learning good practices in crowdfunding
• Learning about how to get involved in more European projects

Learning outcome
• At the end of this webinar, participants should have increased knowledge and capacities to raise funds and finance for the innovators involved in the FoodSHIFT2030 project.

The post Financing and fundraising appeared first on FoodSHIFT 2030.

In recent years, civic-driven action for food system transformation is spurring up across Europe. Within FoodSHIFT2030, partners from 12 European countries built up 9 innovations hubs to co-create sustainable and balanced solutions for food system change. 

While food system change is the smallest common nominator between the partners, the goals of the innovation hubs, however, are manifold. While Brasov focuses on linking regional farmers with the urban gastronomy, Avignon embraces healthy public school procurement or Ostend builds up food literacy and healthy communities. 

Regardless of the diverse actions, many share similar questions when organizing bottom-up food system change. Many ask themselves: How do we reach out to potential partners and how can we engage with diverse communities? Once people are motivated to join the activities, how do you keep them on board? And how can people be empowered to become active food citizens?

These questions and more were at the core of the showcase event in Berlin on September 1st-3rd 2021.

During the first day, a bike tour led the participants from one local project to another through the winding streets of a former working district in Berlin Wedding. First stop was at the Himmelbeet, a 1.700m2 community garden growing since 2013 on a former parking lot. Today, in 2021, the vibe of a parking lot (not much of a vibe) got transformed into a green between a major road, apartment buildings, and a soccer field. Marion de Simon from Himmelbeet shared stories on the garden’s history, forms of engagement, current activities and struggles, like access to land.Toni Karge from the Berlin Senate joined the discussion on the common struggle to secure access public land for community gardening in the long term. 

A different answer to the same questions on community engagement and empowerment was presented by Magdalena Knobel from the Food Policy Council Berlin. Motivated by the premises that everyone should have fair access to a healthy and balanced diet, the project “together at one table” was initiated. Within the project, Syrian and Afghan refugees cook with Berliners and come together at one table to share their stories, cultures and perspectives. Magalenda explains, “sustainable mean different things to different people and to feel included, people need to understand what’s going on on the ground”. 

“Understanding” is also of key importance to Gülcan Nitsch founder from Yesil Cember (Turkish: Green Circle), another project presented during the Berlin showcase event. Gülcan’s ambition is to sensitive and engage the Turkish Community in Germany for sustainability issues, like food systems. Gülcan reflects: “If people cannot read or write, than they can still come to our workshops. I do not exclude them. It is my responsibility to create access for these people.” 

A fourth vignette to community engagement and empowerment was presented by Johanna Kühn, co-founder of SuperCoop, a community-led supermarket. Through early neighbourhood engagement, information exchange and trust building, the SuperCoop succeeded in securing enough collective money to open up Berlin’s first citizen-owned supermarket.  

After a deep dive into Berlin’s richness of community-led food projects, the second day of the event was spent with Karen Wohlert and Scott Bolden at das Baumhaus. Das Baumhaus is an open socio-cultural project space for bottom-up sustainability solutions and the home of Berlin’s FoodSHIFT2030 innovation hub. Here, Berlin’s first food hub prototype is being co-created and built up for and with the local community.

During the showcase event, the visiting partners got to be part of the food hub for 1 day. Through hands on engagement, vegetables were sorted and distributed while food was prepared and finally enjoyed together on a long wooden table placed on the sidewalk and decorated with candles. The meal prepared was inspired by the planetary healthy diet, containing mixed herb salads, nuts, and oven roasted carrots and red beet from regional farmers. Smells of cinnamon and freshly baked bread filled the air with a cozy feeling, creating a perfect sense of what a mix of late summer and early fall might taste like. 

On September 3rd, the conversation on civic actions for food system transformation was opened up to a larger public. The day began with a hybrid panel discussion at the Baumhaus, in which Karen Wohlert (Baumhaus), Christian Bugge Henriksen & Luke Schafer (University of Copenhagen), Beatrice Walthall & José Luis Vicente Vicente (ZALF), Poppy Eyre & Dirk Wascher (Susmetro) and Lisa Haarhoff (Ernährungsrat Berlin) drew a connection between the current climate crisis, the EU project FoodSHIFT2030 and das Baumhaus as a food hub. 

Yet, the food hub would not exist without its wider network combining regional farmers, engaged citizens, and people form the local government. Therefore, the food hub network was introduced and represented by Simone Zeil (Ernährungsrat Brandenburg); Johanna Naatz (Auenhof / GemüseSyndikat); Lorena Unger (AG Urban); Ann-Christin Weber (Senate Department for Justice, Consumer Protection and Anti-Discrimination); Julia Scherer, District Office Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg; Annette Jensen (Ernährungsrat Berlin) and Karen Wohlert (Baumhaus Berlin). The Baumhaus was filled with an enthusiastic atmosphere as people from many different walks of life came together to work towards a common goal: Building up just and resilient food systems. 

After three action- and knowledge packed days, the participants left Berlin, but took more than just their suitcases with them. Along with many fruitful conversations, the relevance and diversity of inspiring, engaging and empowering people were most certainly among the key messages.

If we want to foster a transformation towards healthy communities and resilient food systems, we rely on each other. Only through the value of mutual support and partnerships can we continue our journey towards a low carbon, plant-based and circular food future.

The post Europe meets Berlin appeared first on FoodSHIFT 2030.

There are important dimensions to the places in which the communities in question participate. The first is the food local community. This community is a ‘community of interest’, i.e. a group of different people, who share a common interest for the food policy of the city, and related activities.

Beyond a community of interest that offers a framework for collective reflection, community engagement can be an active participation in “Citizen driven innovation” which are grass-root initiatives, that are new (in an incremental or radical way) and initiated by city-region inhabitants. 

The objectives of the webinar were the following: 

• Sharing experiences in establishing local food community and initiatives, and in contributing to the success of citizens/people led initiatives 
• Discussing main bottlenecks and difficulties 
• Brainstorming about pathways and communication tools which could help (=solutions) 
• Six cities actively participated in this learning process by exchanging experiences

Download the Report and Annex here: F2FAL Web#1 Factsheet.

Download reports per city:

• Avignon_F2F_web#1
• Barcelona_F2F_web#1
• Bari_F2F_web#1
• Copenhagen_F2F_web#1
• Oostende_F2F_web#1

The post Living LAB: Peer learning event appeared first on FoodSHIFT 2030.

Earlier this month, we brought together speakers from Berlin, Ghent and Amsterdam to discuss how each of their food policy councils balance citizen engagement and political buy-in. One of the conversation’s recurring themes was how to get the structure of a council right in order to facilitate involvement from the community as well as ensure the decision-making process with the city government is transparent.

When thinking back on how the food policy council was originally set up, Lisa Haarhoff of Ernährungsrat Berlin (Berlin Food Policy Council) reflected that it needed to be both more dynamic and diverse. This has led them to adapt a sociocratic model (see webinar recording and slides for detail further down) which allows more participatory approaches that focus on dialogue, debate and consensus rather than voting.

“What would we do differently if we were to start again? We would pay more attention to structures that better and more effectively enable people to connect together and get involved. [Our new structure] helps us to be more flexible and react to the current climate.” Lisa Haarhoff of Ernährungsrat Berlin (Berlin Food Policy Council)

From the perspective of Arnold Arnold van der Valk, co-founder of the Amsterdam Food Council, the emphasis has been on shifting from “persons to practice” so that the functions of a council become embedded within the city. While there are many people motivated to transform the industrial food system to make it both more healthy and sustainable, there remains a need for more cooperation among institutions as well as reliable funding to sustain the time commitment that is needed to bring about lasting change.

“The elephant in the room… is funding.

We managed to get [the food policy council] going with almost full-time input of labour of two individuals. But you can’t keep the whole machine going with two people.” Arnold Arnold van der Valk, Amsterdam Food Council

In Ghent it has also taken time for trust to build between citizen collectives and the food council. For Maarten Crivits with Food Policy Council Ghent, he’s found that citizen participation can have a significant and positive impact on the city, but that it requires the council to take up issues that matter to the people. And when there are people who are funded to be involved, it is also important to ensure meaningful ways to participate for non-paid members as well.

“Gather interest around your goals. For instance, if you have a local food strategy with operational goals, do a survey, do interviews with the citizens and entrepreneurs of your city to see what kind of interest is there and use the energy of civil society, the energy that’s already there.” Maarten Crivits, Food Policy Council Ghent

Some of the key lessons from the discussion were best summarised at the end by our chair Beatrice Walthall from the Leibniz Centre for Agriculture Landscape Research (ZALF), who noted that although councils are still evolving in many cases, they also offer concrete ways for citizens to engage politically and instigate change in the food system.

“It’s a very dynamic field of action.

Things are emerging and growing, things are also collapsing because they didn’t work. But overall, we can see some new governance structures and modes emerging.

Communicate about the existence of food policy councils and communicate about the issues. Make people curious, it’s not just a theoretical dry way of lobbying. Food is a really active form of political engagement”, summarised Beatrice Walthall.

• Presentation Slides: available here!
• Take part in our innovation conference in Barcelona in October 
• Join our newsletter to stay in the know about future events (scroll down!)

The post Webinar key takeaways: Structuring food policy councils for citizen engagement appeared first on FoodSHIFT 2030.

Project Description

The FoodSHIFT2030 project is leading an ambitious citizen-driven transition of the European food system towards a low carbon, circular future, including a shift to less meat and more plant-based diets. The FoodSHIFT2030 approach focuses on supporting innovation towards a fast transition of the European food system by 2030, which is necessary in order to address the pressing challenges for food and nutrition security, contribute to the EU commitment of reducing GHG emissions by at least 40% by 2030, and revitalize urban-rural linkages and partnerships to secure the achievement of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030.

Our FoodSHIFT Accelerator Labs

The nine FoodSHIFT Accelerator Labs are located in the following front-runner cityregions: Greater Athens, Avignon, Barcelona, Bari, Brasov, Berlin, Greater Copenhagen, Oostende and Wroclaw.

Each FoodSHIFT Accelerator Lab has defined an innovation focus and innovation actions to increase the technological and societal readiness levels of existing food system innovations within ten major themes and eleven SDGs across the Labs Each FoodSHIFT Accelerator Lab will contribute and share knowledge within the FoodSHIFT2030 consortium to drive innovation upscaling and cross-pollination between the FoodSHIFT Accelerator Labs.

FOODSHIFT FoodSHIFT2030 takes departure in the EU Food 2030 Research and Innovation Policy Framework, the EU’s commitment under the Paris Agreement and the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs.) It brings together a strong multi-actor consortium composed of local governments, SMEs, NGOs, universities, research institutes and network partners to address the H2020 programme topic CE-SFS-24-2019: Innovative and citizen-driven food system approaches in cities.

A fast citizen-driven food system transition will be achieved by creating a framework and efficient mechanisms for maturing, combining, upscaling and multiplying existing food system innovations through the operationalization of nine citizen-driven FoodSHIFT Accelerator Labs and a further 27 FoodSHIFT Enabler Labs to be established in existing and emerging city-region food system hubs distributed across Europe. Furthermore, each of the nine FoodSHIFT Accelerator Labs will initiate the establishment of three FoodSHIFT Enabler Labs to facilitate the food system transition in other cityregions.

Each FoodSHIFT Accelerator Lab will be facilitated by a steering committee consisting of a Lab leader, a Lab host and a Lab assistant from the city-region project partners.

The post What is FoodSHIFT 2030? appeared first on FoodSHIFT 2030.