[PR] Inclusive and sustainable urban food systems – FUSILLI Project partners meet in Turin

PRESS RELEASE

Turin, 30 June 2023

More than 30 partners from 13 European countries met in Turin on 26-28 June 2023 to discuss the progress of their EU-funded project FUSILLI on sustainable, inclusive and healthy urban food systems and to discover the local project activities of Turin.

FUSILLI is an EU-funded research and innovation project about the transformation of food systems in cities towards more sustainability. Over the course of four years, FUSILLI implements and evaluates a wide range of activities to achieve this goal in 12 different cities all over Europe: Athens, Castelo Branco, Differdange, Kharkiv, Kolding, Nilufer, Oslo, Rijeka, Rome, San Sebastián, Tampere and Turin. These cities are the main actors of the project by implementing innovative measures along the entire food chain (production and processing, distribution and logistics, consumption, food loss and waste, as well as governance) in so-called Living Labs. Research partners in FUSILLI accompany the process and evaluate the activities. The lessons learned are shared internationally to motivate other cities to copy activities that have proven particularly successful.

The conditions to transform the urban food systems are different in every city. The project partners meet every 6 months in one of the project cities to align their activities, carry out workshops, forge alliances, but especially to get to know the local ecosystem and stakeholders of the respective city that hosts the project meeting. This time, the City of Turin had the opportunity to present itself to the consortium. A multitude of local partners from research to social initiatives contributed to the programme with presentations: amongst others University of Turin which develops a Food Atlas for the city and regularly publishes Food Metrics Reports; University of Gastronomic Sciences Pollenzo which develops circular models for food; PUNTO al cibo Network which plays a key role in connecting the stakeholders of Turin’s food system; Fondazione Mirafiori which develops new food products and services jointly with and for the citizens of the Mirafiori neighbourhood; Orti Generali which provides an enormous green space with gardening, social and biodiversity activities for its neighbourhood; RePoPP, a project that is dedicated to reducing food waste at Porta Palazzo – Europe’s biggest open air market located in the heart of Turin and Torino City Lab which fosters innovation projects in the city.

Turin’s main partner in FUSILLI – the Municipality of Turin – hosted a highly informative 3-day meeting which provided more than 50 partners from all over Europe to discover Turin’s diverse and remarkable efforts to improve its local food system and share this knowledge widely. Now that the connections are established and the FUSILLI partners had the possibility to meet the key actors in person, the exchange with Turin will for sure continue.