One of the big societal questions is how the knowledge that Annemarie shares can be used at a larger scale. At another institute at the University of Copenhagen, Christian Bugge Henriksen is also involved in behavioral change, but his focus is how to strengthen innovation that can empower normal citizens to make the changes in their eating habits. The FoodSHIFT2030 project is a 7.5 million euro innovation action project addressing the call on innovative and citizen-driven food system approaches in cities. The focus of the project is the transition towards a low-carbon circular future for the European food system, including a focus on less meat and more plant-based diets. The project features a multi-stakeholder consortium of 31 partners, including: 7 municipalities and local governments, 8 small and medium enterprises, and 9 non-governmental organisations plus 7 research institutes and universities. The project is based on a complex full-circle approach, where innovation groups of citizens are supported in developing their ideas at different stages. The project applies a groundbreaking mechanism for maturing, combining, up-scaling and multiplying existing food system innovations in 9 European city regions, and we are looking at both the production, the distribution and the consumption and the recycling, upcycling stage of the food value chain. We are establishing as a part of the project, 9 food shift accelerator labs in 9 European city regions and in each of these city regions the labs will go through a structured process. First we will establish the food shift accelerator labs as open innovation living labs featuring multi-stakeholders from both the private companies, from the civil society, from the local governments and from the research institutes; and, we will explore the existing food system innovations. Then, in the next step, we will work on accelerating these food system innovations by maturing, up-scaling, compiling them all the way to actually creating business plans for promising new food system innovations. We will also have an element of assessing the environmental, social and economic impacts of the different food system innovations, and we will be creating advisory plans and strategies at the city level so that the city regions can support the food system innovations. And, finally, we are also going to multiply the food system innovations by establishing FoodSHIFT enabler labs in 27 follower city regions, and beyond that we have several city region partner networks that will continue to expand the FoodSHIFT project beyond beyond the project duration. So throughout the project, we are working on 4 impact pathways: we have a citizen empowerment pathway, we have a job creation pathway, we have a sustainability pathway and we have a food system transition pathway. The overall approach of boosting innovation solutions is structured in the same way across 9 European city regions that are part of the project. But the focus is different in each of the city region hubs. In the FoodSHIFT accelerator lab in Berlin, we are going to work on an old airport area called Tempelhof, so we're working together with an organisation called Tempelhof Vision, and they want to create a big food system innovation hub in this old airport area. So here we will have space for businesses to develop their food system innovations. We will have urban farming elements, and we will have educational activities. Then, in the FoodSHIFT accelerator lab in Barcelona, we are working on what we are calling food tech 3.0. Here, we actually have a Danish company called Nextfood, who are working on aeroponics for creating urban farming initiatives for a city to be able to feed the whole population in the city. In Bari, we're actually going to work with confiscated land, land that has been confiscated from the mafia. Then, we're going to give back this land to young entrepreneurs, who want to develop sustainable food system solutions on this land. As another example, we have here in Greater Copenhagen; we are focusing on the kitchen of tomorrow. Already here in Copenhagen, we've had great success through public procurement to increase the percentage of organic food in the public kitchens to 90% So in this project, we are going to take this a step further and also increase the percentage of plant-based food in the public kitchens. One of the specific citizen-driven innovations that Christian is working with, and where he earlier has helped with climate calculation on ingredients is the startup Plant Jammer. So, I'm Michael from Plant Jammer, and in Plant Jammer, we empower people to create their own recipes; and, it's based on a powerful notion that you can, ingredient by ingredient, build your own recipes; so you can use what you have. You can find ingredients that are really good for you and the planet and make it really easy to both learn how to cook new stuff, but also make it easy and playful and not feel like a chore. And particularly in the FoodSHIFT project, what we're focusing on there is that behavioral change to really enable people to, you know, cook more plant-based and cook with new ingredients that are good for you and the planet, and we learned that, you know, you cannot change behavior by simply giving people information. We have enough information, we know what we're supposed to do: the art is to actually do it, and we learned that there are 3 particular things you need to do to change that behavior: So, first of all, you need to know what is expected of you. So basically, clarity. Second of all, it's the incentives. There needs to be something in it for you; so why do you do this behavior? And then, the third parameter is you have to be able to do it. So the training, the capabilities. So what we do particularly for food shifts in these three areas is, to get the clarity, we we built a whole greenhouse gas emissions understandings for each ingredient. So you will know which ingredients are good for the planet, and which are not. So you are basically enabled for the transparency to know what is expected of you. For the incentives, we're making a little game out of this. So every time you make a plant-based dish, we're rating it in greenhouse gases relative to a burger; and, then we show you how much CO2 you're saving measured in numbers of trees you can plant. So if you plant a tree during the course of the year, it will save up as much CO2 as you would by having an average plant-based meal relative to a burger every day. And that is exactly what we're sort of measuring up, and then you're building your own forest, and you can brag about your forest with bragging rights to your friends that's basically your incentives to do this behavior. And finally, there's the ability, so they're learning about this. Basically with Plant Jammer, you learn to cook with these ingredients; so you have the ability. On top of that, you also learn where can I find them. So basically, we are adding a farmers market, a digital farmers market, on Plant Jammer, where you find the right ingredients, find out where they are, and then are enabled to actually cook with them afterwards. The reason why Plant Jammer is engaged in eating habits is precisely because this is an area of food systems, where individual citizens have the power to make a big difference in the world So this all started for me from learning the massive impact that meat based consumption has on the planet. And one example is in water, where basically, I learned that if you want to save 2,000 liters of water, you can do one of 3 things: You can either refrain from showering for 3 months in a row, or you can refrain from flushing your toilet for 3 months in a row, sorry, that's 6 months in a row, or you can refrain from eating one hamburger this one lunch. This gives you a really sort of good measure of how impactful it is to change your food habits. That's for water, for CO2 we find similar metrics. It's pretty extraordinary, how actually by having 1 billion people one day a week to not eat meat; you will save as much CO2 as you would if you converted all cars in the US, UK and Germany to electric [cars]. So it's really tremendous impact and the beauty of it, and why we're fascinated about it in Plant Jammer, is that this is within your realm of control; so as an individual you don't need regulation, you don't need big infrastructure products; you can do it yourself. So it's much like the Indians would say about the economy. They say, the economy grows at night, when the government is sleeping; and, we can do the same with with this transition to a more green and more sustainable economy and we can do it via food The engine behind Plant Jammer is based on artificial intelligence and helps making vegetarian food the easier choice. So the core challenge that you have on a daily basis, when you're trying to change this behavior, [when] you know you should be eating more plants, you know you should be eating less meat, is that you come home and what do you do you, you search on Google right? And if you google say zucchini salad recipe, you're gonna get one and a half million results thrown in your face and it's a complete jungle, and if you click the first ingredient that has you know pine nuts, and the next one has you know broad beans, and you don't know what these ingredients are, you don't have them in your fridge, then you're gonna give up because it's just not convenient to change your cooking behavior. So that's why we start with ingredients instead: enable you to type in what you have for what you really feel like eating, and actually get the shortest distance to a recipe. And the way we do it is that we use artificial intelligence that learnt on 3 million recipes: what ingredients tend to go well together. We build a whole landscape of ingredients that shows, the ingredients that are close are ingredients that go well together; and then you can travel in this landscape pick ingredients, and seamlessly suddenly, you have a recipe that's fills up all bases, tastes delicious, it's plant-based and based on the stuff you have in front of you. So it's basically, the concept is that people will do the right thing when it's the most easy thing to do, and that's what we try to do. Projects like Christian's FoodSHIFT2030 are central to the further development of Plant Jammer. Not only because they provide research and climate calculations, but they also provide networks. So partnerships are super important for us in Plant Jammer to get the word out. You see, we are a small startup of ten people, really good food scientists and data scientists working together on making this product we're super proud of. But in today's day and age to spread the word and to let people know, what we're doing and how it can be applied. It's really hard, right? Because you have a lot of noise on Facebook and Instagram and social media, and it's gonna cost you a lot of money in marketing just to get the word out, even if you have a free product. So, this is a way for us to find like-minded people, who have a similar vision about, how we want to change the way we eat and cook, and then help spread the word and make more people aware that there is a solution out that actually can make your life easier and more delicious at the same time.
