BRUGES'

STORY

City Stories > Bruges

Welcome to the story of Bruges!Click on a link to the right to display: 1) a summary of the city's food goals, 2) contact details, or 3) an interview with a city living lab representative.
Or scroll down to explore the entire city story

Summary 

  • In November 2016, Bruges launched its food strategy as a holistic approach to create a more sustainable and local food system
  • The city established a variety of possibilities to engage, for example through their Food Lab and yearly events
  • Through various guidelines and publications, the city makes it easy to understand and engage with food and climate activities 
  • The strength of the project is the co-creative approach between the city and the stakeholders

Contact

Stad BruggeKarine De Batselier - karine.debatselier@brugge.beGeneral - klimaatenmilieu@brugge.be 

The Interview

Click on the question below to read the answers
What was your city's specific focus in your food system transition and how did you initially start working with this focus area in your city?  
Bruges was a partner in the European project DEAR (Food Smart Cities for Development project) from 2015-2016. The city also signed the Milan Urban Food Policy Pact (MUFPP, October 2015). In this project, together with the Bruges Food Lab, the city of Bruges established a sustainable food strategy (2016) named: Bruggesmaakt The Bruges Food Lab is established through a bottom up participation process and is now an independent knowledge and meeting platform. Around 40 organisations participate in the Bruges Food Lab. Among those participants are farmers, restaurant organisations, hotel schools, college, farmers, NGO’s, and the City. The 6 priorities of the sustainable food strategy for Bruges (Bruggesmaakt) are:
  1. Short chain
  2. Urban gardening
  3. Urban agriculture
  4. Food waste prevention
  5. Fair trade
  6. Education (less meat, sustainable fish, school, awareness)
 The city of Bruges also runs awareness-raising campaigns to encourage people to choose more local, vegetable, seasonal, biological and fair products.
Bruges has served sustainable food on city receptions and at own events since 2017, and there is a guideline for the city services. 3 pillars with CO2 impact are also included in our climate plan Bruggenaarmorgen: 
  • Reducing Food loss - we have 2 manuals, one for the health care sector, one for households
  • More plant-based meals (City of Bruges signed the green deal for protein shift)
  • Local seasonal food
 The strength of the project is the co-creative approach between the city and the stakeholders.