The 9th of November 2023 was a big milestone and a historic day in Kolding. For the first time, more than 60 people from the entire food system in Kolding came together and participated in the Food Meeting.
The Food Meeting was the “grand finale” of a two-year participatory process to develop the first food strategy for Kolding. It was organised in cooperation with the Food Council. The purpose of the event was to get input on the selected focus areas and vision for Kolding’s food system. The event also included a community dinner, where we served “new favourite plant-rich dishes” from the public canteens.
The entrance of the MadMøde, decorated with the seasonal vegetables.
As part of the Food Meeting we facilitated three workshops – one for each of the focus areas:
- Education & Knowledge
- Health, well being & Food for all
- Sustainable production and consumption
For each of the focus areas we used the ‘boat metaphor’ to facilitate discussion about ‘where we want to go / the dream for our food system’ (the island), what is holding us back / the barriers (the anchor), what is giving us a boost (the wind) and what we want to take on board the boat and bring to the island.
The engagement was great and we got a lot of qualified input for the food strategy. We will now start the ‘writing’ phase and we expect to have the first draft of the Food Strategy for internal review by mid-January 2024. We hope to adopt the final Food Strategy around summer 2024.
Close up of the beautiful decoration with colourful carrots, pumpkin, sprouts and cale
The event was held at Kolding Library, and the whole place was decorated with seasonal fruit and vegetables, sponsored by the local food distribution centre BC Catering. This made for a really beautiful and relevant setting – as well as a “take away” for the participants, as everyone was invited to take what they wanted to take home. For the surplus food, we had arranged for a local food organisation to come and collect the remaining food. So no food waste was generated by the event!
Board from the workshops where we worked with the “boat metaphor” to talk about where we want to go and what is holding us back.
