Various regional municipalities across the Baltic countries have put food waste reduction as a priority in their long term regional strategic plans. However, the lack of experience, competencies, resources and limited capacity at the local and regional municipality level puts up barriers and impedes contextualizing food in the field of circular economy and tackling the food waste challenges.

A circular food system represents an innovative approach to how food is produced, consumed, and managed. This model aims to eliminate waste and actively regenerate natural ecosystems, moving away from the conventional “take-make-dispose” pattern.

Through the transnational cooperation, capacity building and stakeholders’ engagement activities, the “Circular FoodShift” project fostered stronger collaboration between schools, farmers, procurement specialists, chefs and municipalities in shaping circular food systems aligned with the EU Circular Economy Action Plan.

Project activities

• Capacity building guide "Engaging all stakeholders in circular food changes at municipal level”. A methodology for defining capacity building actions and cross-sector cooperation models, and assessing its productivity impact.
• A defined framework "Setting the table for a Circular FoodShift" for municipalities in the Baltic countries. It offers sector-specific guidance (entry points of the project) to support the municipalities in identifying practical circular economy interventions in collaboration with stakeholders from schools, businesses, interest groups, academia, civil society, and more.
• “Making the School Community Food-Wise” program to improve the quality of school food and reduce food waste in school canteens, training and empowering school cooks on sustainable cooking to put theory into practice.
• International webinar and workshop series of capacity building on circular business models for vocational schools.
• Introducing to procurement specialists the new technological innovation called “Dynamic Food Procurement” (DFP) which aims to cut food waste and reduce supply chain distances.

Achievements
The procurement focused activities engaged over 40 procurement specialists and agencies, small food producers, and municipal representatives.
Thanks to the Circular FoodShift project, one of the district municipalities in Vilnius region integrated dynamic food procurement in their school food procurement system, and established a short supply chain agreement with the organic farm cooperative EKO Market LT, to provide healthy and local food to kindergartens and elementary schools in Ukmerge district.

The food education program, “Making the School Community Food-Wise”, engaged 5 schools in Tartu County to co-develop student-centred food systems. This program has supported the creation of a long-term vision for a sustainable school food system by promoting circular economy for food principles. As a next step, the program will be tested in 5 more schools starting autumn of 2025.

The School Chefs’ Masterclasses in Latvia trained 43 chefs and catering professionals with practical tools for sustainable and zero waste cooking. This training method has also helped to connect school chefs from different regions and schools, and enabled the exchange and knowledge between them to continually improve and revitalise school menus.

The international vocational school webinars trained 40 educators from Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Finland in integrating circular food principles into culinary and hospitality education.

The collaborative paper, “Local and Circular Food System in Baltic Countries“, offers a research-based perspective on the region’s green transition and showcases key examples of systemic innovation. By involving the target- and stakeholder groups in and outside the project regions, the project tackled several challenges that are key to advancing food systems' sustainability; essential cross-sectoral involvement, exchange between regions, increased collaboration and having a common goal and vision from municipalities.

Read the story here, and if you've missed it, listen to the Circular FoodShift Talks – podcast episodes.