We adopt a living lab approach to co-create, explore, experiment and evaluate with local stakeholders supporting a transition towards a more diverse local food system.

LLs are “user-driven open innovation ecosystem based on business-citizens-government partnership which enables users to take active part in the research, development and innovation process” (European Commission, 2009).

Our activities concerning Living Labs aim at:

• Setting up innovation spaces based on already existing alternative food networks,
• Developing, testing and experimenting with particular diversity-oriented solutions and practices in local food systems and explore their sustainability potential,
• Providing long-term social, economic and environmental impact of FOOdIVERSE
• Establishing links between Living Labs in 5 European countries to exchange knowledge and good practices.

Nutrire Trento was chosen as the Italian LL for the FOOdIVERSE project

Nutrire Trento is promoted by the Municipality and the University of Trento, with the aim of searching for solutions to the three major food paradoxes of today: Hunger vs. Obesity | Food vs. Fuel | Waste vs. Starvation. It involves farmers, consumers, civil society groups, researchers and local administrators with the goal of improving the quality of food that supplies the city and providing fair remuneration in the local food chain. To this end, a digital platform http://www.nutriretrento.it was created to map farmers, local and organic food markets, specialized stores, consumer groups, and urban and social gardens in the Trento area. 

On 23 May 2022, the memorandum of understanding between FOOdIVERSE and Nutrire Trento was signed [HERE]

Our activities concerning Living Labs are coordinated by the Institute of Sociology at the Jagiellonian University in Cracow and follow a three-step strategy as represented below:

During the Nutrire Trento meetings, it soon became clear that the main concern of those involved in the project was finding ways to involve larger and more diversified sectors of society, improving access to “good food” beyond the middle classes, therefore to low-income people, immigrants, and younger generations.

We, therefore, decided to support the different projects proposed by participants in three different ways:

• providing support for the coordination of the various activities
• collecting information and data to help monitor and evaluate the different activities
• stimulating debates on relevant issues involving experts

List of activities:

A) Organizational support for the projects

• CSA Naturalmente dal Trentino [read more HERE]
• Natural… Mente, UniTrento 2022 Summer Camp: initiative for children aged 6 to 11 [read more HERE]
• Agri-Cultura, a project involving secondary school students [read more HERE]
• Foodwave – At the table with sustainability, a project involving university students [read more HERE]
• Solidarity goes to the market, a project involving low-income people [read more HERE]

B) Helping through research (research4action)

• In-depth research on CSA members (both eaters and producers)
• One focus group with university students involved in the FoodWave activity
• In-depth study of the outcome (also in terms of the satisfaction of producers and households involved) of the project

C) Stimulating informed debates

• 15 April 2021 La strategia ‘Farm to Fork’ tra redistribuzione e multispazialità [HERE]
• 12 May 2022 Dibattito tra Paola Fontana (coordinatrice Tavolo Nutrire Trento) e Andrea Calori (Està) [Part 1 & Part 2]

The FOOdIVERSE Italian Team is also actively involved in managing the Blog of Nutrire Trento [HERE]