Switching european food systems for a just, healthy and sustainable dietary transition through knowledge and innovation

Research Project, 2023 – 2026

The overarching goal of the SWITCH proposal is to improve understanding of knowledge, accessibility and facilitation gaps that limit present large scale adoption of sustainable and healthy diets among European citizens and to develop and demonstrate appropriate innovative solutions and tools to facilitate a just transition towards healthy and sustainable dietary behavior at all levels of the multi-actor food system in EU.
The transition towards sustainable, safe, healthy and inclusive food systems, from farm to fork has become a key priority for EU policies, in line with the UN goals sustainable development goals (SDGs). The biggest challenge at present is represented by the limited knowledge of influence dietary choices which limits large scale adoption of healthy and sustainable diets. The SWITCH ambition is to accelerate the behavioral shift of European citizens towards more sustainable and healthy patterns, using Research and Innovation (R&I) as a driver to increase knowledge, accessibility and facilitation strategies at all level of the food systems, involving a multi-actor systemic approach and a co-creation strategy to delineate solutions fair to consumers that support virtuous behavior throughout the whole food chain. For a successful large scale adoption of healthy dietary behavior, all the actors of the food systems need to be engaged, connected and valorized. In pursuing its objectives the project aims to go beyond the present state-of-the-art addressing the most relevant points of the program topic ""Transition to healthy and sustainable dietary behaviour HORIZON-CL6-2021-FARM2FORK-01-15""