Sustainable food
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Sustainable food
Eating habits have a major impact on climate change and environmental degradation. Ghent tackles these issues by making its local food system more sustainable.
Sustainable food
Eating habits have a major impact on climate change and environmental degradation. Ghent tackles these issues by making its the local food system more sustainable.
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Globally, 800 million people suffer from hunger, while an estimated 30% of food is wasted. The city's food strategy 'Gent en Garde' makes the local food system more sustainable with respect for people, animals and the planet, by focusing on 3 strategic objectives:
- A short, sustainable food chain
- Sustainable food for everyone
- no food waste
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programme
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Ghent's sustainable food projects & plans
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Pioneer in protein transition
As the first city in Belgium, Ghent presents a local action plan for protein production &consumption.
Ghent has been a forerunner in the protein transition for more than 10 years.
In 2009, Ghent started 'Thursday Veggie Day', a campaign to encourage citizens to eat vegetarian at least one day a week. On Thursdays, all of Ghent's city schools, day-care centres and public services serve only vegetarian meals. Various initiatives (such as promoting restaurants and shops that offer vegetarian alternatives, coaching restaurants in the preparation of vegetarian meals and organising vegetarian cooking workshops for hundreds of citizens and students) ensured that more and more inhabitants of Ghent came into contact with vegetarian cuisine. Compared to other Flemish cities, Ghent has a significantly higher number of citizens who are willing to reduce their meat consumption. This also made Ghent attractive for research, companies, restaurants and caterers specialised in vegetarian food.
Building on all these years of experience, the City of Ghent is the first city in Belgium to present a local action plan to a shift in protein consumption towards 60% plant-based nutrition. The plan was drawn up in cooperation with the Food Council and after a series of consultations with stakeholders. In doing so, we take into account both the demand and the supply side. Because both are closely linked. Together with local producers, for example, we are looking for innovative and diverse protein sources, more sustainable animal production and more production of proteins for human consumption.
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Free fruit picking
There are over 40 locations in Ghent where you can pick fruit for free.
Together with a local ngo, Gent en Garde created a digital map of all fruit trees in Ghent's public spaces, where citizens can pick their own fruit for free. The project was supported by the Food Council. It was further developed and supported by the City of Ghent.
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Support for community gardens
Ghent supports and educates citizens, schools & organisations to make their vegetable gardens a success.
No less than 42 schools and 25 community gardens have already received support. An online helpdesk has also been developed where citizens can ask questions about their own vegetable garden, no matter how small.
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Foodsavers
Foodsavers in Ghent collects food surpluses via a logistics platform and delivers them to social organisations in Ghent.
With Foodsavers, the City of Ghent is tackling the ‘food waste’ problem on a large scale. More than 1,000 tonnes of food surpluses from supermarkets or auctions have already been redistributed through poverty alleviation organisations and social restaurants. In this way, we save on CO2 emissions, employ people who are long-term unemployed and fight poverty. The Foodsavers project originated from a bottom-up idea, which was picked up and developed further by the City.
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Free land for sustainable production
Ghent invests in agricultural land for local and sustainable production.
The Goedinge is a pilot project in which 10 hectares of land - owned by the City of Ghent - is put on the market for free for local, sustainable food production, to be sold to the urban population. This pilot project enables experimentation with criteria for sustainable agriculture, cooperation and social aspects of food production.
The lessons learned from the Goedinge project will help develop new models that can be rolled out on public farmland in the coming years.
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Short-chain platform
The professional platform Vanier brings short-chain products to Ghent shops and restaurants.
The City of Ghent supported the start-up of Vanier, an innovative cooperative platform that brings short-chain products sustainably to shops and restaurants in Ghent. Vanier brings restaurants, institutional kitchens and retailers into contact with producers from the Ghent region. In this way, the market for these producers expands and buyers get a closer relationship with the producers and the products.
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Online food forum
The online platform Gent en Garde is a meeting place on sustainable food in Ghent.
The online platform Gent en Garde is a meeting place on sustainable food in Ghent and has already reached more than 50,000 inhabitants of Ghent. The website lists more than 1,000 local food initiatives. There's also a Facebook group of Ghent and Garde that continues to grow.
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Restorestje
Less food waste with the Restorestje: a handy box to take home the surplus food after a restaurant visit.
Ghent was the first Belgian city to launch the 'Restorestje' initiative: a free, compostable box for restaurant leftovers. In five years , no less than 71,000 boxes were handed out by 180 participating restaurants in Ghent. The concept of the Restorestje emerged from a citizens' consultation and was later approved by the City.
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Sustainable school meals
Ghent opts for honest, healthy and sustainable school meals that respect people, animals and the environment.
The school meals in Ghent city schools and day-care centres consist of more organic ingredients, less meat and more seasonal products. Criteria such as food waste and human and animal welfare are also taken into account. With our sustainable school meals, we reach 4,500 pupils and serve 775,883 meals per year.
On Thursdays, all meals are vegetarian. On all other days, halfhalf meals are served: this means that for each meal animal protein is limited to a maximum of 50% of the total protein content.
In 2019 the city signed the cool food pledge. From 2018 to 2022, the city was able to reduce 38% CO2 emissions from the school meals, due to the introduction of half-half meals. Reducing the purchase of red meat had the most impact in reducing the CO2-emissions.
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Our secret ingredient: co-creative governance
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One of the important aspects of Ghent's food strategy is its innovative governance model involving numerous stakeholders. The model is based on co-creation and participation.The Ghent food council:
- Brings together some 30 representatives of the agricultural sector, distribution and trade, restaurants, civil society and knowledge institutions.
- Gives advice to the city, acts as a sounding board and is also actively involved in the development of the objectives and priorities.
- Has its own budget to stimulate innovative projects that make the food system more sustainable.
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Sustainable food awards & partnerships
Ghent's food policy received several national and international awards and is an active partner in several international food cooperations.
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Winner of the UN Award‘Momentum for Change’
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Winner of theEurocities Award 2021