Young people across Europe are demanding changes to transform the food system to be more sustainable, including promoting regenerative agriculture, defining uniform nutrition and labelling guidelines, and making food systems more inclusive.

Research, commissioned by EIT Food, supported by the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) surveyed over 2,000 18–24-year-olds from across the UK, France, Germany, Poland and Spain. The findings show that nearly eight in ten young people young people across Europe and the UK (78 per cent) think we need to take urgent action to make the way we produce and consume food more sustainable.

Meanwhile, two-thirds (66 per cent) feel that the current food system is destroying the planet (rising to 67 per cent in the UK), and that the situation is only getting worse. Food sustainability is of growing concern for this age group, with two-thirds (64 per cent) saying it has become more important to them in the past 12 months.

EIT Food has also worked closely with ten innovators aged 18-24, appointing them as FutureFoodMakers to spearhead a call for radical change.

These FutureFoodMakers have developed a Menu for Change of six priority demands for the food system to improve access to healthy, sustainable and affordable food.

The Menu for Change asks that 25 per cent of agricultural land to be managed under regenerative practices by 2030 and develop a training body to support existing and new farmers in the transition to regenerative farming and define uniform EU nutrition and labelling guidelines which include the environmental impact of food products.

It is also suggested that an inclusion policy considers the effects of regulations on food costs among vulnerable populations and the provision of vouchers for nutrient-rich foods and a true cost of food policy mandates the calculation of the true cost of foods produced by medium-large corporations and multinationals through the implementation of life cycle analysis and impact assessments.

Food waste in supermarkets should also be tackled through the development of the bioeconomy strategy by creating supermarket reduction monitoring plans that feed into the EU-wide food waste monitoring programme and accelerating the development of substitutes to fossil fuel-based materials that are biobased, recyclable or biodegradable.

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