We foster loud local voices to create food systems where everyone has access to healthy, sustainable, just and affordable food.
Supermarkets dominate food environments for most European citizens, who have minimal influence in return. We aim to tackle retailers’ curation of pervasive food environments promoting unhealthy, unsustainable food consumption whilst failing to feed citizens fairly and to stimulate alternative, local food environments.
Work to address food system change is often ‘top-down’ – NGOs advise, pressure, and persuade supermarkets and policymakers to act. By building on our existing community engagement, we plan to champion lived experiences within food systems and build a ‘bottom-up’ agenda for those in positions of power. These include low-income communities most affected by food inflation and those working in food supply chains themselves. Policies about them should not be made without them.
To this end we work together with a local network of alternative food initiatives and with the local Food Policy Council in The Hague. We also participate in a national network of alternative food initiatives to support change from the bottom up.
Creating a new system requires learning and gaining insights on grassroots experiences. Therefore, Foodrise in the EU coordinates a coalition with 7 European partners, including Réseau Action Climat (Climate Action Network- France) and ALTAA in France, CECU in Spain, Terra! in Italy, Green REV Institute in Poland, and Foodrise in the UK to amplify the voice of citizens and campaign for their wishes and needs regarding a healthy, sustainable, and just food environment.
We have joined the residents of Moerwijk, a deprived area in The Hague, in their mission to get a healthy and affordable supermarket in their neighbourhood. The idea of a democratic supermarket was born: a shop where consumers themselves have influence on the offer and which also has a positive social impact through job creation for residents. We have conducted research into the expectations of a supermarket for people with a lower income and connected with a local organisation and have put pressure on the municipality to work together on making this supermarket a reality. The intention to establish a supermarket in that area is now included in the local Food Strategy. In addition, food is now also accepted in the local Climate Agreements. At the same time, we have collected the learnings and insights from our coalition to present in the form of a Manifesto to the European Commissioner for Agriculture and Food, Christophe Hansen.
To encourage policymakers at all levels to make more use of inclusive processes to arrive at balanced and broadly supported policies.
To consider food as a cross-cutting priority in every policy discussion, decision, and reform.
To dismantle food myths and establish mechanisms that put people at the heart of the food system.
To support and facilitate alternative local food initiatives to strengthen the social web.
To promote the transition to a more plant-based diet as the easy choice.
To discourage the supply of unhealthy and unsustainable products in supermarkets and by retailers through regulation, and to prohibit advertising and marketing of unsustainably produced food.
To increase support for organic farming and farmers who follow agroecological practices, and to promote policies that make organic produce more accessible to all.
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