360.come project promotes healthy eating and reducing food waste

A cookbook, a manual of good agricultural practices, a manual for sustainable canteens, a database of local agricultural producers, and dozens of sessions in Guimarães schools.

Promoting healthy eating, reducing food waste, proximity consumption, the transition to a circular economy and good land use were some of the objectives of the 360.come project by the Landscape Laboratory, financed by the Environmental Fund of the Ministry of the Environment and Climate Action. The results were presented this Monday as part of the European Week for Waste Reduction.

The multidisciplinary project, which integrated Research and Development, Environmental Education and Communication, ran from January to November 2023.

360.come had a strong impact on more than three hundred students in Guimarães, raising awareness and educating about good agricultural practices. In 15 schools, 30 teachers were involved in 64 sessions and 15 cooking workshops, with three well-known chefs, António Loureiro (A Cozinha), Álvaro Dinis and Liliana Duarte (Cor de Tangerina), and Tiago Silva (QChef). Each chef contributed four recipes, which resulted in a book that is available to the whole community at www.labpaisagem.pt. As part of the project, 400 micro-vegetable cultivation kits were produced and delivered, made from textile waste and masks.

The project also included an assessment of students’ food waste in the school context, which showed a reduction of around 9% at the end of the project, demonstrating the importance of education and awareness-raising actions.

To promote sustainability in public canteens, a Handbook for more sustainable canteens was also created, which provides comprehensive guidelines.

The researchers from the Landscape Laboratory also had the opportunity to create a database of agricultural producers, which includes more than 50 producers and more than 100 products, with the aim of promoting the consumption of locally produced and processed agri-food products. The promotion of good agricultural practices is also intended to be boosted through the Good Agricultural Practices Manual created as part of this project.

The session to present the results was attended by teachers, students, technicians and other partners involved in the project. At the closing ceremony, Adelina Pinto, deputy mayor of Guimarães and president of the Landscape Laboratory, highlighted the positive impacts of 360.come. “A project that has worked on all aspects of sustainability, which leaves a fantastic legacy and data that allows us to understand what we still have to work on in terms of raising awareness. The project can’t stop here. It must continue to work with schools to continue to make a difference,” he concluded.