Innovative Strategies for Public Catering: Sustainability Toolkit across Baltic Sea Region

StratKIT

PROGRAMME 2014-2020

priority

1 Innovation

objective

1.3 Non-technological innovation

StratKIT

The StratKIT project built a path for more sustainable public catering services by addressing relevant procurement strategies in the Baltic Sea region.

Project summary

Public authorities have a large purchasing power and have the ability to give clear signals to the market towards green growth and circular economy. However, public procurement is a complex task and good practices in the Baltic Sea region are mostly isolated. The public catering sector looks for increasing its capacity to act as innovation driver and boost local and regional economy through the collaboration with SMEs.

StratKIT presented concrete tools

StratKIT brought together public authorities, catering service providers and researchers to jointly address this challenge. The project used the so-called tree framework model offering a modifiable visualisation of the national situations. It was constructed in close cooperation with relevant stakeholders in six countries to display how the catering service is embedded in the regulations, business administration, and actual operations. With the help of this method and within the strong network of different stakeholders from different regions, the project managed to develop a needs-based practical toolkit and an online open knowledge platform for sustainable public catering.

Budgets

StratKIT
in numbers

2.05

Million

Total
1.44

Million

Erdf
0.18

Million

Eni + Russia
0.00

Million

Norway

Achievements

Outstanding network of cooperation

Hundreds of public meal stakeholders (administrators, procurers and caterers) from Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Poland and Russia were cooperating within the StratKIT project. The project started with mapping the state-of-the-art of sustainability in catering services in the project countries and beyond. It analysed the local conditions and specific factors enabling or limiting the progress towards increasingly sustainable procurement and catering services. Within a joint learning, experience exchange, and innovation process, the partners of the project gradually developed important expertise to support the service providers and adjust the procurement process for more sustainable public meals.

External recognition

The StratKIT project caught the attention of a wide range of stakeholders outside the consortium. The success of the project can be measured in the fact that the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) has asked permission to share the Online Toolkit on their pages (spring 2022). In addition, the initiators of quite a large Best-Re-Map Joint EU Action have been highly interested in the outcomes. The Joint BSR Report for sustainable public procurement and catering services, published within the project, received its recognition by being cited in a scientific paper.

Institutionalised knowledge

The expertise of various institutions dealing with public meals has been significantly enhanced over the three years. Many of the published tools directly advise how to improve the governance structures and organisational set-up in order to support sustainable public meals. For example, the getaway "Strategies for Change" includes tools specifically designed for decision-makers, customers, and suppliers who intend to make changes in the process of choosing and providing public meals.

The transnational cooperation within and outside the project partnership has inspired not only the involved partner municipalities, but also their neighbours.

Outputs

Sustainability Toolkit

The Public Meal Toolkit provides targeted and experience-based advice, and there is an interactive online version available. The toolkit is very diverse, inspirational, and practical and will help overcome barriers with good examples. It presents more than 50 tools for public procurers, caterers, and policy-makers to start the change in their municipality, their canteen, and their organisation. All tools include a step-by-step description for easy implementation. The approaches range from strategy development, training for kitchen professionals, and checklists for procurers to map organic farmers. The topics covered by the Toolkit are: Strategies, Public procurement, Communication and capacity building, Organic food, Food waste, Healthy and plant-based food, Resource efficiency, and Working with farmers. All tools are provided in seven languages to increase accessibility (English, Danish, German, Estonian, Finnish, Polish and Russian).

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