The FUSILLI project reached its mid-year checkpoint. On the train on the way back from the project’s 5th consortium meeting in Kolding, Denmark, there is time to reflect on what we have achieved as Tampere University of Applied Sciences (TAMK).
TAMK has a few main goals in the project: to develop living lab activities and sustainable campus dining, and to act as an expert partner to promote a sustainable urban food system in Tampere.
Systematic development
The development of TAMK Catering Studio Living Lab of Food & Sustainability is our primary goal. In the project, a sustainable food system is developed specifically systemically, involving all relevant actors in living labs: open innovation ecosystems.
Together, we have formulated and crystallized the vision, mission and values of the Living Lab. To further this goal, we established a living lab development team in the degree programme in Hospitality Management, which meets once a month.
Together with our international project partners, we are also building a knowledge community for a sustainable food system. In this work, we look more broadly at living labs that focus on the food theme, the systemic challenges and learning issues that arise in them. The collection of interview data is currently underway.
Sustainable campus dining
As another spearhead, we are involved in developing sustainable campus dining. In the spring of 2022, we organized a vegetarian, planetary food pop-up event together with Saarioinen, Campusravita and hospitality students.
In autumn 2022, we implemented a dinner menu with 1st year hospitality students that follows a planetary diet as part of the UNIFI & Arene Sustainability and Responsibility seminar. Menu development challenged student teams to think about experientiality and hospitality when implemented sustainably. The developed menus and the best successes will live on in the campus meals and the offering of TAMK Catering Studio’s events.
Sustainable and carbon-neutral food services have been highlighted as one of the cornerstones of carbon neutrality in the Tampere University community’s roadmap for sustainable development.
Sustainable food choices
Third, we aim to support the City of Tampere in its efforts to raise awareness on sustainable food even more strongly to the level of the city’s strategy and measures. We carry out this work together with our project partners the City of Tampere, Ahlman and Ecofellows.
At its best, the City of Tampere and the Tampere University community are spurring each other on as an enabler of sustainable food choices, for example, by enforcing a criteria of sustainability for food services operating in the city.
FUSILLI’s Periodic Meeting was held on 23.–25.11.2022 in Kolding, Denmark. The fruitful meeting shed light on the belief in the implementation of a sustainable food transition. The shared goal of a project consortium of 12 cities and more than 30 partners requires encounters, discussion, dialogue, cross-pollination of common challenges, ideas and solutions – including preparing and enjoying food together!
The cooperation between Southern Denmark University and the city in Kolding is visionary and bold, and offered us a huge amount of ideas to implement during the project period in Tampere’s context. Only together can we build a sustainable European food system.
A controlled fair food revolution requires cooperation and systemic thinking. The FUSILLI project builds an international knowledge community that enables learning and development at the same time. Last but not least, sustainable food choices matter!