Co-Creating a European Food Sustainability Institution

European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) Food

EIT Food is Europe’s leading food innovation initiative, working to make the food system more sustainable, healthy and trusted. The initiative is made up of a consortium of key industry players, start-ups, research centres and universities from across Europe. The aim of this study was to understand what influences consumers to eat more healthily, more sustainably, and to be more open towards food innovation.

Part of our study was made up of five online focus group sessions, with an average of six participants per session. The groups were led by by Stefanie Jansen, CoCreator with TheCoCreators. In these sessions we focused on the role that authorities (local governments, the EU) can play in encouraging the consumer to eat more sustainably.

The focus groups were illustrated while in action by Peter Guldemond.

The participants co-created a ‘Institute for Food Sustainability’ and imagined what that would look like.  Most respondents in this study agree that a European body or institute, that creates European policies would be helpful.

It may be funded by the EU, but it would ideally not be part of it. Rather, they view it as an independent, multi-disciplinary association that creates rules and regulations based on expertise and experience. These rules and regulations, in turn, could be carried out locally or by the same organ or institute.

The main reason that people feel a European body or institute is needed, is that in the current situation, rules and maintenance of rules vary widely among countries, resulting in unclarity and a lack of transparency for consumers.