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Recap of the 3rd Project Meeting: Advancing Sustainability Goals

On March 5th, 2025, key stakeholders of the SOSfood project gathered in Brussels for the 3rd Project Meeting, augmented by digital participation to foster inclusivity. The event at TOPOS Parliament was marked by a series of enlightening talks, robust discussions, and strategic planning, all aimed at advancing the project's sustainability objectives.

Highlights from the Meeting

• Opening Remarks: Initiated by Euro Coop's Fabrizio Fabbri and Annalisa de Chirico, alongside UVIGO's Jesús Simal-Gandara, the meeting commenced with a warm welcome and an agenda overview. This introduction set the stage for a day dedicated to tackling core challenges in sustainability within food systems.
  
• Insights on Sustainability: Emy Zecca from UNIFE provided a comprehensive overview of the Sustainability Conceptual Framework, which was complemented by Koen Kuipers from SRU who delivered insights into regional sustainability strategies through a digital presentation.
  
• Dynamic Discussions: Led by Jesús Simal-Gandara, the meeting engaged in an invigorating discussion centered around three pivotal case studies. The dialogue culminated in forming strategic perspectives for the project’s future, enhancing collaborative efforts among all participants.
  
• Yearly Progress Review: This session reviewed various work packages, highlighting key achievements and outlining next steps. Discussions covered data strategies, impacts on ecosystems, and advancements in AI-based data tools, along with the initial rollout of the project's app and dashboard.
  
• Strategic Outreach and Operational Planning: The latter part of the meeting focused on updating the consortium on outreach strategies and reviewing operational deliverables. Irmantas Čepulis from AFL detailed progress on WP6 and shared insights into the dissemination efforts, while Eloy Miranda discussed the operational aspects crucial for moving forward.

Reflecting and Looking Forward

The meeting emphasized enhancing collaboration among scientific staff, researchers, and use case partners. This focus aimed at defining and establishing clear criteria to develop tools, systems, and policy recommendations for implementing sustainable methods and models to reduce food waste. The collaborative spirit was palpable throughout the sessions, reflecting our shared commitment to transformative solutions.

The meeting showcased the dedication and passion of all consortium members, whose contributions are vital to steering the project towards achieving its sustainability goals in food systems. The discussions not only reinforced our collaborative framework but also set a clear path for future endeavors.

We are enthusiastic to continue this journey and implement the strategies discussed, aiming for significant advancements in sustainable food systems.

SOSfood project is funded by the EU's Horizon Europe program. Funding does not represent endorsing. Neither REA nor the European Commission can be made responsible for the views and opinions of the project partners.

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Recap: "Driving Sustainability Through Healthy Diets" Conference

On March 4th, 2025, the "Driving Sustainability through Healthy Diets" conference, organized by Euro Coop and held at the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) as part of the SOSFood project, convened to discuss the intersection of dietary changes and sustainability. The event aligned with World Obesity Day, highlighting its significance in promoting both environmental and human health.

Key Discussions and Presentations

• Opening Remarks: Todor Ivanov of Euro Coop introduced the conference's goals, emphasizing the crucial role of sustainable dietary practices in environmental conservation and health improvement. 
• Research Insights: Siavash Farahbakhsh from the ILVO presented the FOODDATAQUEST project, focusing on how AI can help bridge consumer knowledge gaps and encourage sustainable eating behaviors. He referenced FAO’s guidelines, advocating for diets that are nutritionally adequate, environmentally responsible, and socially acceptable. 
• Public Sector Initiatives: Andrea Patrucco discussed the Milan Urban Food Policy Pact's achievements, where over 300 cities have adopted sustainable food policies, enhancing urban food systems through innovative policy tools. 
• Industry and Retail Contributions: Representatives from FoodDrink Europe and Independent Retail Europe shared how their sectors are contributing to sustainable food environments through educational projects and industry-led reformulations to improve nutritional profiles. 
• Consumer Advocacy Roles: Luigi Tozzi and Carmen Redondo Borge highlighted their organizations' efforts in promoting stricter food labeling and marketing regulations, emphasizing the need for improved food literacy and consumer awareness. 
• Keynote Address: Peter Schmidt called for stronger policy interventions to make sustainable food accessible to all, stressing that consumer education alone is insufficient for significant dietary shifts. 

Conclusions and Forward-Looking Statements

The discussions reaffirmed that sustainable dietary practices offer substantial benefits for both the environment and public health. Key takeaways included the importance of AI in optimizing food supply chains, the environmental benefits of reducing meat consumption, and the health advantages of plant-based diets.

The conference concluded with a collective call for continued multi-disciplinary collaboration, further research into sustainable dietary benefits, and the promotion of EU-wide policies to enhance food systems. The participants committed to driving actionable changes, underscoring the event's role in shaping future food sustainability strategies.

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Featured at FARO DE VIGO: Simal will participate in a conference in Brussels on food sustainability.

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Driving Sustainability Through Healthy Diets

During the conference, we’ll delve into key topics, such as:

Framing the connection between eating habits and food sustainability

The role of research in driving change

Public authorities’ engagement in promoting sustainable diets

The involvement of industries and retailers in food sustainability

The contributions of NGOs to healthy and sustainable food systems

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D4.5-First prototype of the predictive dashboard

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Data Collection Strategy

Data collection is the systematic gathering of information from various sources to answer research questions, test hypotheses or make informed decisions. It is a crucial step in the research process, as the quality and relevance of the data collected directly impacts the validity of the findings.

Effective data collection requires careful planning, appropriate methods and adherence to ethical guidelines. By following a structured approach, researchers can ensure that the data collected is reliable, representative and suitable for their analysis.

SOSfood project aims to leverage data and AI to promote sustainability and inclusion across the food system. The project seeks to create a robust data ecosystem to support decision-making and innovation in agricultural production, food processing and distribution.

To achieve such a challenging purpose, an effective Data Collection Strategy is necessary to provide guidance on defining the scope, selecting tools and methods, developing a data collection plan and managing the collected data.

SOSfood project has a multi-factor approach on the food system that means to seek and explore a wide range of Data: some of these data are already available within the food system, but the multi-factor point of view requires to search also through new types of unexplored data.

Concerning the food chain, data encompasses agricultural production, food processing, transformation, distribution, sales, and consumer behaviour. Beyond these areas, it is necessary to find and collect data related with environment, health, sustainability, social and economic aspects.

Here comes a challenge: where and how can relevant data be found, gathered and used?

The first possibility is to search for open data: digital information that can be freely used, reused and redistributed, with the only condition of attributing the source or acknowledging its authorship and, in some cases, sharing the result under the same conditions. They are designed to be accessible to all, promoting transparency, innovation and the efficient use of information. 

Open data are accessible through online platforms, that in some cases have APIs: an API (Application Programming Interface) is like a bridge that connects different programs or systems so that they can talk to each other, making easier to gather and use the available data.

Examples of food related open data platforms are:

• European Data Portal (EDP): offers over 79,000 datasets related to food.
• FAOSTAT: provides free access to food and agriculture data for over 245 countries and territories and covers all FAO regional groupings from 1961 to the most recent year available. 
• OpenFoodFacts: a food products database made by everyone, for everyone.

Another opportunity is to leverage the EU projects network, making connections with “twin” projects, such as FoodDataQuest. This kind of collaboration allows to share resources and cooperate for common objectives. In fact, FoodDataQuest will develop ground-breaking data-driven solutions based on an integrated methodological framework that explores new types of private and public data sources, data from “unconventional players” and non-competitive data, and leverages data sharing mechanisms in order to provide the EU food chain stakeholders with increased insights and enhance the transition towards sustainable healthy diets.

Last, but not least, the European data strategy sets out the vision of creating a single market for data where it can flow freely within the EU and across sectors. The creation of EU-wide, common, interoperable data spaces in strategic sectors is a pillar of the data strategy and will help overcome existing technical and legal barriers to data sharing and unleash the potential of data. These data spaces will bring together relevant data infrastructures and governance frameworks to facilitate data pooling and data sharing.

From a technical point of view, data spaces are a concept of data management: they put technology systems and rules in place to integrate and exchange data. What emerges is a federated data ecosystem based on shared policies and rules. Data is distributed across storage points and integrated on the basis of what is needed. Tools are provided to discover, access, and analyse data that is distributed across industries, companies and entities.

Open data and data spaces represent an extremely valuable resource for developing a more sustainable society: for this reason we warmly encourage all the government and administration to foster the participation in data spaces and incentivise the creation of APIs for data sharing.

Once the data is available, the strategy focuses on Data Quality, that refers to the state of qualitative or quantitative pieces of information and it measures how well a dataset meets criteria for accuracy, completeness, validity, consistency, uniqueness, timeliness and fitness for purpose. The criteria to meet the required Data Quality has been defined in the strategy and ensured through Data Characterisation process, aiming to create a useful and reliable dataset for analysis and effective decision-making:

A Data Characterisation Template has been established for the Data Collection process:

In this stage of the project, Data Collection is ongoing, covering the scope of pilot User’s stories, that represent relevant scenarios for the sustainability in the food system.

In the next stage, the first prototype of a predictive Dashboard will be developed, requiring a big amount of data to train the model.  

Everyone can help to overcome this challenge: if you want to contribute, we will be very grateful if you can contact us to report sources of open data related to food system or facilitate the use of the available data creating APIs. A more sustainable food system will be the best reward!

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Deliverable 1.1: Building a Multi-Actor Network for a Sustainable Food Future

The SOSFood project is making significant strides toward creating a healthier, safer, and more sustainable food system by fostering collaboration across diverse stakeholders within the food value chain. This essential milestone focuses on identifying the needs and expectations of stakeholders, paving the way for transformative solutions in the food system. 

Understanding the landscape of our food system

To establish this collaboration, Euro Coop, the leader of Work Package 1, designed a comprehensive survey distributed to over 40 organizations dedicated to food sustainability. The 24 participants included primary food producers, manufacturers, retailers, academic institutions, and NGOs across Europe, with a particular focus on regions such as Spain, Greece, and Lithuania. Their responses provided critical insights into the current challenges and opportunities within the food system.

The questionnaire was structured into four key sections, addressing the environmental, social, and economic dimensions of food sustainability, along with stakeholders' priorities for potential sustainability initiatives. This multifaceted approach enabled the survey to capture a wide range of perspectives on crucial issues surrounding food production, distribution, and consumption.

Preliminary findings from the survey provided a comprehensive picture of the measures and policies that could enhance sustainability across the food system’s three pillars. In the next stage, these insights will be discussed with project partners to determine which proposals should move forward in the upcoming case studies set to take place in Athens, Lithuania, and Galicia.

What are the next steps?

Looking ahead, the project team will conduct a detailed analysis of the most promising actions, including a SWOT assessment to evaluate their feasibility and potential impact. The goal of this collaborative approach is to ensure the continued progress of the SOSFood project toward building a more sustainable, inclusive, and resilient food system.

An updated report, incorporating new insights and feedback from additional stakeholders, is anticipated for release in 2025.

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Proudly announcing the start of the SOS Food Zenodo EU Community

Zenodo’s repository serves as a platform to gather different project “communities”, each representing projects funded by a range of European programs. Currently, the repository includes projects funded by HORIZON and EURATOM.

This initiative marks a significant step forward in SOS Food’s commitment to promoting open access and open science. By creating this repository, our project aims to facilitate greater sharing and accessibility of research findings, fostering collaboration and innovation across the scientific community.

The EU Open Research Repository is part of a broader effort led by CERN on behalf of the EC. This platform is dedicated to ensuring that research funded by European programs is freely accessible to everyone, ultimately benefiting researchers, policymakers, and the public as well as promoting transparency, and accelerating scientific progress.

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SOSFood project launches to transform EU food systems with AI innovation

To tackle the current environmental challenges, the new SOSFood (Sustainability Optimization for Secure Food Systems) project funded under Horizon Europe programme will accelerate the green transition of EU food systems by using the great potential of artificial intelligence technologies. 

The main objective in the span of 48 months is to support all stakeholders of the food chain to make well-informed decisions with a holistic approach, enabling more productive, inclusive, sustainable, and resilient food systems.

Despite various efforts to address such aspects as reducing waste, promoting eco-friendly farming and local food products, improving unhealthy diets in the population, optimizing manufacturing and distribution, etc., none have fully grasped the global scale of the issue. Additionally, existing strategies have often been too complex or inaccessible to make significant impacts.

SOSFood seeks to change the situation by bringing together a diverse consortium of experts from the private and public sectors, academia, research, and industries, including consumers and producers. They will collaborate aiming to establish a multi-actor network that promotes transparency and data sharing; map the food system with a multidimensional strategy; co-design tailored decision-making tools that empower every stakeholder in the food chain. 

To ensure the effectiveness and viability of the project, the project will undergo validation in three case studies at regional, metropolis, and national levels in Galicia, Athens, and Lithuania, respectively.

SOSFood officially kicked-off on March 1st, 2024, in Santiago de Compostela, Spain, bringing together all 17 partners from across Europe. Besides the event hosting country, the Netherlands, Italy, Portugal, Lithuania, Greece, France, and Belgium are in the project’s multidisciplinary consortium. For further information about the project, please visit our website.

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