Towards a sustainable catering industry
07/07/2021
Cool Food Pro project is set to help the catering industry to reduce its carbon footprint, by promoting sustainable food choices and reducing waste.
The project, led by Université de Bretagne Occidentale, will run until June 2023 and aims to increase sustainability, food security, and public well-being across France and the UK.
It builds upon the award-winning micro project, Coo-L Food, also funded by the Channel programme, which encouraged consumers to switch to more sustainable food habits through a real-time digital CO2 tracker.
Cool Food Pro aims to promote long-term behaviour change, across both the Public and Private Catering sector through promoting the following actions:
- Buying local and seasonal ingredients.
- Increasing the number of plant-based meals.
- Reducing the amount of food and packaging waste.
The project will design and develop a free, low-carbon web app, where caterers will be able to measure the progress of their CO2 savings and food waste. It will be further assisted by a customised support program for roll-out in school canteens, hospitals, and workplaces.
Christian Brosseau, Vice President of the Université de Bretagne Occidentale in charge of Research and Innovation, said: “We are proud at UBO to be able to support a European Interreg project as it symbolises the positioning of our institution in the food transition on our territory, it asserts our presence vis-à-vis economic and public stakeholders in carrying out this transition, it promotes the strong link between research excellence and the needs of society, and it strengthens our visibility through European instruments.”
Carolyn Reid, Programme Manager, France (Channel) England programme, said: “Following on from the success of Cool Food which sought to encourage consumers to adopt more sustainable food choices, Cool Food Pro will help to create lasting change in the catering industry. Through funding this project, we aim to support the development of new practices that will help the catering industry transition to being carbon neutral by 2050.”
The project has a total budget of €1,2m, of which €832,825 has been co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund via the Interreg France (Channel) England programme.
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