Building a green gastronomic city (San Sebastián, Spain)

Building a green gastronomic city is a project aiming at finding solutions to challenges related to sustainability and gastronomic identity in the urban agri-food community through initiatives such as Gastronomic Journeys. BCCI understands Gastronomic Journey as an opportunity to discover the flavour and the culture of the city and bring awareness to citizens about challenges of the food system through chef-prepared dishes

Challenge addressed

Urban food systems challenges through open calls for projects directed at implementing innovative activities, educational programmes and citizen engagement.

Solution proposed, focus area

The main objective of the project is to identify challenges and solutions of San Sebastian´s food system. This project helps create an environment where different agents can be involved in finding solutions to reactivate the local gastronomy and educate citizens on sustainability, without forgetting the aesthetics and inclusivity, which are the pillars of the NEB initiative. The project has two phases in which co-creation groups will be conducted with different citizens groups: consumers, chefs, producers, suppliers, and experts in the fields of climate change, digitalization (blockchain), and engineering (agro-environmental).

Target Groups

All the agents of San Sebastián’s food system, including consumers, producers, providers, and chefs.

Main activities / milestones

• Focus groups: discussion groups to facilitate exploration, discussion and co-design by the agents of the food system.

• Individual interviews to gather information

• Develop a pilot gastronomic journey initiative

• Engage citizens through their participation in the pilot gastronomic journey

• Evaluate initiative for future potential implementation of the initiative

• Long-term community engagement
  
  

Partnership

Fomento San Sebastián, City Council of San Sebastián, Aarhus University -EITFOOD Partner, Gipuzkoa hospitality business association, Basque Center of Climate Change (BC3), LABe Restaurant

Outcomes

A pilot initiative called “GastroKultur” (initially referred as Gastronomic Journey) conducted during the project as part of a dissemination event. This pilot event provided information on the effectiveness of this type of initiative to engage citizens and create an impact in the community. Through the workshops and the engagement of representatives of the food system, the agents equipped with the knowledge and skills necessary to create future working groups directed towards exploring and finding solutions to current and future challenges of the food system of the city of San Sebastián.

All of the identified challenges and problems regarding future urban sustainability, and possible solutions sent to the municipality of San Sebastián in order to take action in the future and improve the sustainability of the food system.