Periodic Reporting for period 2 - CHORIZO (Changing practices and Habits through Open, Responsible, and social Innovation towards ZerΟ fοod waste)
Période du rapport: 2024-04-01 au 2025-09-30
Food waste is a major social, economic and environmental problem. A large share of food loss and waste is not caused by technical failures, but by everyday human behaviour, habits and social norms. To reduce food waste effectively, decision makers need better insight into why people waste food and which actions really work in practice.
The CHORIZO project addressed this challenge by studying how social norms, behaviours and organisational settings influence food waste in different parts of the food system. The project focused on households, schools, food services, retail, food redistribution initiatives and local authorities. Its overall goal was to turn behavioural evidence into practical tools, guidance and policy insights that help move towards zero food waste.
The CHORIZO project addressed this challenge by studying how social norms, behaviours and organisational settings influence food waste in different parts of the food system. The project focused on households, schools, food services, retail, food redistribution initiatives and local authorities. Its overall goal was to turn behavioural evidence into practical tools, guidance and policy insights that help move towards zero food waste.
The project conducted a comprehensive evidence-based analysis of existing Food Loss and Waste (FLW) prevention and reduction actions through a comprehensive evidence-based analysis of FLW actions, which provided the foundation for subsequent work. CHORIZO developed and refined the CHORIZO FLW Insighter Datahub as a central evidence repository to enhance usability, FAIRness (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable), accessibility and sustainability. The project developed a modelling and predictive analytics backbone on social norms, behaviours and FLW outcomes, resulting in validated impact scenarios and the 0FLW Rapid Appraisal/Visualizer Tool validated by stakeholders. The project embedded behavioural insights into communication, education and capacity-building activities, leading to sector-specific guidance, five targeted communication packages, a science education package tested in multiple countries, and a training programme reaching over 200 actors. CHORIZO delivered a dual business model, identified 13 exploitable results, and strengthened synergies with EU initiatives and sister projects through a dedicated sustainability strategy to ensure the exploitation, upscaling and long-term sustainability of project results. The project maximised engagement, dissemination and alignment with national and European networks through a comprehensive outreach program, including a project website with over 22,000 visits, strong social media growth, participation in more than 65 events, active collaboration with sister projects, an engaged City Interest Group, and a joint final conference with ZeroW, culminating in CHORIZO receiving the Sustainability Action Award 2025.
CHORIZO advanced the state of the art in a practical and applied way by integrating evidence, behavioural insights and user-friendly tools into a coherent framework for food waste prevention. The project established the first integrated FLW Datahub, consolidating more than 395 documented prevention actions, 65 multi-source datasets and empirical case study evidence into a FAIR-compliant decision-support environment enriched with harmonized metadata. This enables practitioners and policy makers to efficiently identify relevant actions. CHORIZO also enhanced understanding of how social norms influence food waste by combining behavioural research with empirical case studies across households, hospitality, retail, schools and food redistribution systems. Through the integration of theoretical behavioural frameworks, the project developed two simulation models and validated more than 60 intervention and population scenarios, capturing how motivations, opportunities, social identities, and organisational contexts shape FLW outcomes. These models explicitly account for socio-demographic and contextual differences, including gender- and actor-specific patterns, ensuring that behavioural insights reflect social diversity and inclusiveness. While exploratory, this modelling approach provides a more nuanced representation of non-financial motivations, bounded rationality and actor interactions than existing FLW models. These insights were translated into the web-based Rapid Appraisal/Visualizer Tool, which presents 49 validated scenarios in an accessible format for decision-makers, educators and practitioners. Finally, CHORIZO extended the state of the art beyond analytics by translating behavioural evidence into five sector-specific communication packages, a multilingual science education package and a training reaching over 200 actors. These outputs were co-designed, tested, and validated with end users and embedded within a structured sustainability framework. Combined with the Datahub’s post-project hosting arrangements, CHORIZO’s innovations are well positioned for sustained application, scaling, and integration within European food waste prevention frameworks beyond the project’s duration. The CHORIZO Datahub will remain accessible to all users and will be hosted on the CHORIZO website until 2030. Additionally, opportunities to integrate the Datahub with ongoing European initiatives focused on data sharing and data spaces (CEADS) will be pursued, ensuring long-term viability and interoperability with other relevant datasets.