On 4 September eight cities have been awarded with two monetary prizes and six special mentions during the Milan Pact Awards ceremony.
With the monetary prize was awarded to the city of Ghent, (Belgium) for the good practice “Foodsavers Ghent”. The city created a program to scale up food wast recovery after two years of participatory planning. FoodSavers is a platform linking supply and demand for leftover food in collaboration with social organizations and restaurants, food banks, retail and wholesale markets and even the farm level. Full participation of private, public and social sectors builds upon a foundation of an integrated approach to food governance with Ghent’s Food Council. Clear targets were set not only for recovery of leftover foods for distribution, but also for climate change mitigation, social employment and fighting poverty. These were more than exceeded and Ghent’s integrated approach to food waste recovery is already a model for other municipalities inside and outside Europe.
The city of Lima (Peru) received the second monetary prize for the category “Challenging Environment” for Programa Lima Sostenible: Promoviendo la seguridad alimentaria/Sustainable Lima: Promoting Food Security. From an assessment of the urban and territorial food system, a multi-actor platform and core group were created to prioritize actions and coordinate programs to protect valuable farmland and plan new markets and short supply chains. The legal framework include policies at the city level but also aligns with the National Food Security Strategy for Peru and with four 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Additional special mentions go to the following cities and good practices:
Governance: Wanju (Republic of Korea) for its Local Food No. 1 Project providing a sustainable farming guarantee to 3,000 family farmers, and creating jobs with social and economic benefits to the circular economy
Sustainable diets and nutrition: Parma (Italy) for its Giocampus Project/Fostering the Wellbeing of Future Generations, which connects local food culture, food education, physical activity and environmental education to create in children and their families a culture of wellbeing
Social and economic equity: Belo Horizonte (Brazil) for its system of Popular Restaurants to serve low-income residents with lower cost nutritious foods, in particular for serving free meals to homeless street people
Food production: Sao Paulo (Brazil) for its programm From the Land to the Table: Local sustainable development through school linking food production to consumption, the city to the countryside, and providing quality food to those most in need while strengthening the ecosystem.
Food supply and distribution: Seoul (Republic of Korea) for its Urban Rural Coexistence Public Meal Service Project providing healthy food at affordable prices for public meal service while providing a good income for farmers
Food waste: Turin (Italy) for Progetto Organico Porta Palazzo: Towards Circular Markets, an efficient waste collection system for the largest and most culturally diverse food market in the city (and the largest open air market in Europe).
51 practices submitted from 37 cities in 21 countries.
Winning Cities: Ghent (Belgium) and Lima (Peru) – Special Metions: GOV Wanju; SDN Parma; FP Sao Paulo; FSD Seoul; FW Turin
