The meeting has been hosted by the city of Amsterdam in 2018 with a focus on food waste management and reduction.

For the first time a joint meeting took place among the WGs Food and Waste, during the Eurocities Environment Forum, and it was the occasion to share experience on the main action of the WG Food, sharing knowledge among cities member, and the WG Waste, mainly focusing on EU advocacy on policies. Both Working Groups observed that several cities are developing actions on food waste reduction, a new competence on which cities are strongly committed. The cities focused on the occasion to follow the development of EU policies on waste management, with attention to the technical aspects.

Concerning innovative actions in cities, Milan and Eurocities also gathered 43 good practices from member cities and presented the report on Food Waste in EU to the participants.

The WG Food Focal Point and the European Affairs Unit of the City of Milan set up a presentation of the H2020 call “Innovative and citizen-driven food system approaches in cities”, one of the first funding opportunities for cities after the study “Food in cities” provided to the EU Commission sound evidences of the potential of urban food systems. In addition, research and open innovation co-created with citizens were the ingredients to stimulate the development of cities as innovative food hubs.