Advocating for transformative minimum standards in public canteens

On 10 October, representatives of local and national governments attended ‘Promoting Social Innovation through public canteens’ where a class from the British Junior Academy handed the manifesto for establishing minimum standards for public canteens across the EU to Members of the European Parliament.

This manifesto advocates for healthy and sustainable school meals, and specifically wants to set a goal to reach 20% organic in public procurement. The signing organisations also advocate for food education in schools, so every child in Europe can re-connect with the origin of the food they eat and understand the importance of sustainable food systems.   

The organisations also advocated to implement food education in schools, so that every child in Europe can re-connect with the origin of the food they eat and understand the importance of sustainable food systems.   

Mrs. Joke Schauvliege, rapporteur on the Legislative Framework for Sustainable Food Systems (SFS) for the Natural Committee of the European Committee of Regions emphasized the central role of regions in the establishment of sustainable food systems. Tunç Soyer, Mayor of Izmir Metropolitan Municipality, Türkiye & ICLEI Global Executive Committee Member presented Izmir’s agriculture and food program. By applying biogeography-based product planning, Izmir Agriculture identifies and promotes selected products identified as high market demand and economic value, but also produced through biodiversity friendly methods which makes them more drought resilient. Silvia Schmidt, policy manager at IFOAM Organics Europe concluded these introductory remarks by reminding the benefits of sustainable public procurement, including more organically sourced products, that are working for environmental sustainability but also from a social and economic point of view.

Following this, Peter Defranceschi, Head of ICLEI Brussels Office & Global CityFood Program presented the Manifesto‘s 7 and the petition A healthy school meal for every child in every school signed by more than 50,000 Europeans, calling on policymakers to ensure that every child, in every EU school, has access to a healthy, sustainably produced school lunch and that all pupils are taught about what constitutes a balanced diet to the Members of Parliament (MEPs) present: MEP Michaela Šojdrová and MEP Manuela Ripa.

For more information on sustainable public procurement and IFOAM Organics Europe’s work on this issue, please:

• Have a look at our infographics showing the benefits of sustainable public procurement (our members can contact us at [email protected] if they want to translate these),
• Visit our website, or
• Contact [email protected]. Do note that we prioritise our members’ requests.

For information about what you can gain from being a member, read our membership page and contact [email protected].

Buy Better Food

This event was co-organised by members of the Buy Better Food campaign. IFOAM Organics Europe co-leads the Buy Better Food – Sustainable food on the public plate campaign, which aims to raise awareness on sustainable public procurement of food in Europe. This campaign’s main objective is including mandatory criteria for public food procurement in the Sustainable food systems framework initiative, that will be published in 2023. To achieve its goal, this advocacy campaign will amplify good practices and challenges in public food procurement, demonstrating how it can contribute to sustainable, healthy and fair food systems the EU Farm to Fork Strategy and UN Sustainable Development Goals put forward.

Visit www.buybetterfood.eu to learn more and follow the coalition’s activities on Twitter and LinkedIn using @buy_betterfood.