Periodic Reporting for period 1 - SWITCH (Switching european food systems for a just, healthy and sustainable dietary transition through knowledge and innovation)
Periodo di rendicontazione: 2023-01-01 al 2024-06-30
The SWITCH project aims to address knowledge gaps, accessibility issues, and facilitation barriers that prevent the widespread adoption of sustainable and healthy diets among Europeans. It is developing and showcasing innovative solutions and tools to promote fair transitions towards healthier and more sustainable eating behaviours across the EU's multi-actor food system. The primary challenge is the limited understanding of factors influencing dietary choices, hindering large-scale adoption of sustainable diets. The project employs a systemic multi-actor and co-creation strategy to create equitable solutions that encourage positive behaviour along the entire food chain. The hypothesis and solutions identified by the project during the first 18 months are being translated into practical experiences to be tested with the stakeholders in 6 Food HUBs which represent living labs in 5 different countries across Europe: Rome and Lazio region (Italy), Cagliari and Sardinia region (Italy), San Sebastian and Basque region (Spain), Montpellier Metropolis and Occitanie région (France), Berlin and Federal State of Brandenburg (Germany) and Göteborg and Västra Götaland region (Sweden).
In the first 18 months of the SWITCH project significant progress has been made across the various work packages into which the project is divided. Project coordination, management and ethics requirements have been successfully carried out. In particular, the relevant ethics and data requirements were recollected in a data management plan.
A European and regional analysis of food systems and consumption patterns was carried out with a report on agronomic, nutritional and socioeconomic statistical data was created in order to answer the needs of the 6 Food Hubs of the project, together with an overview of trends of food consumption patterns based on production and import at different scales of analysis. Also, a report on food labels was realised, answering sustainability and health criteria with a zoom on the Food Hubs and a nested database and description document on a multi-level synthesis of the EU and National numeric database of nutritional variables in the form of food fluxes by mass. These findings were presented during a workshop to gather feedback on EU project preliminary results.
Concerning the definition of healthy and sustainable reference diet models across Europe, a new synthetic index of food sustainability was produced, together with database containing quantitative sustainability and nutritional data for the analysis of regional dietary patterns and food offer, and a portfolio of sustainable and healthy dietary patterns tailored for the Hubs’ regions in Europe respectively for general populations and children, elderly and women in fertile age.
A social assessment of determinants of healthful, sustainable dietary behaviour and lifestyles was carried out through a realist conceptual model that is going to be applied to monitor and evaluate social determinants of Hub activities and a through a report that describes the research protocol, methods and tools of the psychosocial assessment, both qualitatively and quantitatively.
Concerning the work done for the involvement of the 6 Food Hubs a report was produced that describes the first exploration of the engagement process and 6 Action Plans, one for each Food Hub, were realised containing the specific actions that each of them is going to implement.
Digital and technical innovations to facilitate food sector engagement were carried out, in particular with the Data Lake, a comprehensive repository and retrieval system. Furthermore a report on the work leading to the generation of a first proposition for the requirements and hypotheses for the Digital Hub Experience and a report that presents the work in progress of the Digital Hub Experience were realised, leading to the achievement of a project’s milestone.
The EU scenario of food dietary patterns and environmental and socio-economic shifts is ongoing in order to develop the integrated modelling toolbox and produce scenarios of regional healthy sustainable diets in the EU.
A workshop on how to communicate the impact of SWITCH in sustainable and healthy diets and GHG emissions was carried out.
A clearing house for national and EU food policy recommendation is ongoing in order to develop and provide policy recommendations for policymakers, underpinned by scientific evidence, to facilitate the transition towards healthy personalised management and sustainable dietary behaviour.
A European and regional analysis of food systems and consumption patterns was carried out with a report on agronomic, nutritional and socioeconomic statistical data was created in order to answer the needs of the 6 Food Hubs of the project, together with an overview of trends of food consumption patterns based on production and import at different scales of analysis. Also, a report on food labels was realised, answering sustainability and health criteria with a zoom on the Food Hubs and a nested database and description document on a multi-level synthesis of the EU and National numeric database of nutritional variables in the form of food fluxes by mass. These findings were presented during a workshop to gather feedback on EU project preliminary results.
Concerning the definition of healthy and sustainable reference diet models across Europe, a new synthetic index of food sustainability was produced, together with database containing quantitative sustainability and nutritional data for the analysis of regional dietary patterns and food offer, and a portfolio of sustainable and healthy dietary patterns tailored for the Hubs’ regions in Europe respectively for general populations and children, elderly and women in fertile age.
A social assessment of determinants of healthful, sustainable dietary behaviour and lifestyles was carried out through a realist conceptual model that is going to be applied to monitor and evaluate social determinants of Hub activities and a through a report that describes the research protocol, methods and tools of the psychosocial assessment, both qualitatively and quantitatively.
Concerning the work done for the involvement of the 6 Food Hubs a report was produced that describes the first exploration of the engagement process and 6 Action Plans, one for each Food Hub, were realised containing the specific actions that each of them is going to implement.
Digital and technical innovations to facilitate food sector engagement were carried out, in particular with the Data Lake, a comprehensive repository and retrieval system. Furthermore a report on the work leading to the generation of a first proposition for the requirements and hypotheses for the Digital Hub Experience and a report that presents the work in progress of the Digital Hub Experience were realised, leading to the achievement of a project’s milestone.
The EU scenario of food dietary patterns and environmental and socio-economic shifts is ongoing in order to develop the integrated modelling toolbox and produce scenarios of regional healthy sustainable diets in the EU.
A workshop on how to communicate the impact of SWITCH in sustainable and healthy diets and GHG emissions was carried out.
A clearing house for national and EU food policy recommendation is ongoing in order to develop and provide policy recommendations for policymakers, underpinned by scientific evidence, to facilitate the transition towards healthy personalised management and sustainable dietary behaviour.
The SWITCH project is laying the groundwork for developing a scientific basis for dietary advice aimed at policymakers and Member States, empowering individuals to adopt healthier and more sustainable dietary behaviours. The project produced the new synthetic index of food sustainability, the SWITCH food database with sustainability and nutritional indicators, a set of recommendations for healthy and sustainable dietary patterns, including for vulnerable groups. Furthermore, it contributed to identifying critical deviations of EU citizens from healthy and sustainable dietary patterns, with recommendations for policymakers.
SWITCH is focusing on understanding the factors influencing dietary behaviour in different target groups across Europe, particularly vulnerable groups and providing evidence and recommendations on factors, barriers, and constraints influencing dietary behaviour, also through the development of action plans for Food Hubs.
The project aims to identify effective means for food system actors to foster behavioural change and enable informed food choices among consumers, through the development of the Hub Digital Experience platform, the establishment of the SWITCH DataLake, the creation of innovative digital tools to facilitate healthy and sustainable behaviour, and a summary for policymakers and Member States to support policies for healthier dietary behaviours.
In the end, the SWITCH Consortium has been working on new model approaches and scenarios to provide a scientific basis for policy communication strategies, promoting the acceptability of health policy interventions, such as EU and national scenarios analysing trade-offs and co-benefits of dietary shift policies in the context of EU 2050 targets.
While the project is still in its early stages, these efforts collectively aim to position the project at the forefront of promoting state-of-the-art EU-wide socio-economic models and encouraging sustainable healthy diets for European citizens by incentivizing food behavioral changes on both the supply and demand sides.
SWITCH is focusing on understanding the factors influencing dietary behaviour in different target groups across Europe, particularly vulnerable groups and providing evidence and recommendations on factors, barriers, and constraints influencing dietary behaviour, also through the development of action plans for Food Hubs.
The project aims to identify effective means for food system actors to foster behavioural change and enable informed food choices among consumers, through the development of the Hub Digital Experience platform, the establishment of the SWITCH DataLake, the creation of innovative digital tools to facilitate healthy and sustainable behaviour, and a summary for policymakers and Member States to support policies for healthier dietary behaviours.
In the end, the SWITCH Consortium has been working on new model approaches and scenarios to provide a scientific basis for policy communication strategies, promoting the acceptability of health policy interventions, such as EU and national scenarios analysing trade-offs and co-benefits of dietary shift policies in the context of EU 2050 targets.
While the project is still in its early stages, these efforts collectively aim to position the project at the forefront of promoting state-of-the-art EU-wide socio-economic models and encouraging sustainable healthy diets for European citizens by incentivizing food behavioral changes on both the supply and demand sides.