On Thursday, 23 September, City of Turin, in the presence of the Mayor Chiara Appendino, presented the first Turin Food Metric Report, a strategic tool aimed at strengthening sustainable, responsible and resilient responses in favour of the city. This Report serves as an investigation and monitoring tool focused on the various components that intervene and contribute to defining the city’s food system.
The tool was developed on the basis of analysis of similar and tested experiences of other international cities; first of all New York, which is publishing the original “Food Metrics Report” since 2012 and has a dual objective, to measure and monitor over time the effectiveness of the strategies and projects adopted and developed by the administration of the city area, and to identify new opportunities to guide and accompany the city in its food policies transformation according to a systemic and participatory approach.
The report is starting from different indicators structured into thematic families and highlights a close correlation between apparently distinct areas of intervention:
- Food security and safety
- Sustainable, ecological and supportive public purchases
- Food trade
- Urban agriculture
- Food business
- Gastronomic tourism
- Food and circular economy
- Food, nutrition and health
- Training and research
Each thematic section contains some examples of projects and good practices in order to highlight the most effective initiatives identified by the administration protagonist over the years. Each section concludes with critical issues and opportunities for the definition of new objectives and policies to be implemented. Through the annual monitoring of indicators and the progress of initiatives and projects, it will be possible to obtain a balance sheet of the urban food system that will allow to measure concrete impacts in the fields of the actions implemented by the administration and its collaboration with other local actors.
The results of the Food Metric Report were also presented during the Food Journalism Festival, which took place in Turin on 27 and 28 September.
The occasion of the launch of the Food Metric Report was strategically chosen to present the FUSILLI project to the broad public, including the details of the main activities on which the city of Turin will work over the next few years, including the process that will lead to the establishment of a Food Council.
The event continued with the presentation of specific projects promoting circular economy, environmental sustainability, waste reduction and the fight against food waste, such as the free distribution of compostable food bags to the operators involved in the Porta Palazzo food distribution sector; a first experiment in positioning an eco-compactor for the recycling of plastic, accessible to anyone in the neighbourhood, and a mushroom-growing project created from the coffee grounds recovered from the coffee shops in the area.
Mayor Chiara Appendino presenting Turin’s Food Metric Report. Credits: City of Turin
The evening ended with a free aperitif prepared with the transformation of food surpluses recovered in the Porta Palazzo market, the largest open-air market in Europe.