Around 13 years ago, a study found that the farming belt across Bordeaux Metropole was disappearing and the region had only one day of ‘food autonomy’ where it could survive on food produced locally. This kickstarted a growing focus on food governance in the region.
Challenges since then – from the growing climate crisis to food poverty exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic – have only served to underline the importance of food resilience to ensure a sufficient supply of healthy food for the whole population.
Today, Bordeaux Metropole has a food policy as well as a Food Policy Council and is on a collaborative journey towards a much more sustainable food system.
The approach has seen the region recognised internationally and shortlisted in the Eurocities Annual Conference in Cluj-Napoca in May.
Everything is connected
“It is really important to have a shared vision of a sustainable food system,” commented Patrick Papadato, Bordeaux Metropole’s Vice Mayor in charge of nature, biodiversity, food and agriculture, and Co-President of the Food Policy Council. Papadato says he likes to use his full job title to emphasise the fact that “these aspects are all connected”.
This thinking illustrates why Bordeaux Metropole’s strategy aims to address the food system holistically from ‘farm to fork’.
In 2017, building on collaboration with local organisations since 2014, Bordeaux Metropole became the first French territory to establish a Food Policy Council. The Council is made up of local participants in the agriculture and food sectors, including policymakers and municipalities, and food producers, processors, retailers, and other supporting organisations.
The ambitious food policy that we have today is thanks to the Food Policy Council. If we hadn’t involved the stakeholders, we might have made different decisions
Today, 130 organisations have signed the charter and are official members of the Food Policy Council.
“The strength of the Food Policy Council lies in the diversity of stakeholders involved, aiming to be representative of the local food system,” said Papadato.
This helps the Metropole understand the needs of the Council members – from issues of social inequality to challenges facing farmers.
It also helps the Council members understand what is happening at the Metropole level and connect with each other, says Meriem Bozzo Rey, who is the Manager of a social grocery store run by the Communal Centre for Social Action of Floirac, a local government organisation responsible for social services in the municipality of Floirac. She is also the co-president of the Food Policy Council.
“Food is a big subject,” said Bozzo Rey. “We can approach it via a lot of doors, so before implementing some action, it is important to have a global definition of a sustainable food system and the objectives the city has. “
“Then we can work like a big team together with all the colleagues and all the stakeholders involved.”
Through the network, for example, she was able to connect with an NGO working on social security and welfare for students, and this is a relationship that may not have come about otherwise.
Growing influence
In 2020, Bordeaux Metropole assessed the Food Policy Council and agreed that the initiative should be scaled up from an experiment to something more formal. The Food Policy Council was assigned a new role: to influence public policies.
Building on this and thanks to its participation in the European-funded FoodTrails project, Bordeaux Metropole engaged over 400 people and organisations to create a food policy that reflected local needs and aspirations.
“The ambitious food policy that we have today is thanks to the Food Policy Council,” said Papadato. “If we hadn’t involved the stakeholders, we might have made different decisions.”
Members of the Food Policy Council told the Metropole that they participated not only because they wanted to be part of a network but because they also wanted to be part of political decisions. In 2023, the Food Policy Council officially became the governance body for the Food Policy, further enhancing its influence on actions and cementing the shared nature of achieving goals.
You have to dare to think big, think long-term, and be open to involving everyone
The policy sets out 12 strategic targets, including protecting agricultural land, bringing food supply chains closer to home, and making organic and plant-based food accessible to all residents. These are underpinned by concrete, measurable goals such as preserving the metropolis’ agricultural holdings and land to 2027, while increasing their number by 10% by 2030. Another target is reducing food waste in school canteens by 50% by 2025, and recycling 100% of biowaste.
Supporting farmers and local producers is a key goal. “We really need to help farmers to be more sustainable and also with commercialisation so they can have a fair income,” said Papadato.
Thomas Boisserie, the Head of aquaponic urban farm company Nouvelles Fermes, sees the benefits of taking part. The company started with two farms in the Bordeaux region and is working to scale its model nationally.
“As an urban farmer in the Bordeaux Metropole area, opportunities for exchanges with the entire supply chain are rare,” said Boisserie. “Spending a few hours every two months with the Food Policy Council to meet our peers, suppliers, processors, customers, restaurateurs, and local policymakers allows me to step back, contribute to densifying an ecosystem, and even fosters solidarity among us.”
Bozzo Rey says it was “intense work” to create the food policy but it is paying off in the way it links different parties. “Sometimes people might think that a subject is not relevant to them, that it doesn’t concern them but what we do for farmers will have an impact on food aid and so on. In a way, we are all interconnected.”
Further, she believes all the early effort underpinning the policy makes it more actionable.
She explained: “When we created the food policy, we were ready to change, we were ready to trust the local NGOs and stakeholders to do the work too because we had been working together for many years.”
Crossing borders
Bordeaux Metropole also began collaborating beyond regional borders to address shared food challenges.
“Thanks to the consultation that we did to create the food policy, we know that the stakeholders value the fact that we are not only working on food but also on the production aspects and cultivating more local production in order to have more food resilience and working with neighbouring areas also,” Papadato said.
“We know that we cannot produce everything in the metropole; we need to have this co-operation.”
He cites the number of Food Policy Council members and participants as a key marker of the project’s success, as well as the length of time many have been involved. A survey indicated satisfaction among members who found it was a good way to bring people together and achieve results efficiently.
In terms of actually changing the food system, it is still early days but one promising area is collective catering. This means centralising meal planning, food purchasing and preparation across public sector organisations such as schools and hospitals, and where possible, committing to using local and organic food. This streamlines costs and logistics, reduces food waste, and allows more control over food sources and quality.
Every day approximately 65,000 meals are served across the network of 360 public canteens in Bordeaux Metropole. At this scale, public sector buyers such as municipalities can lead by example.
“We need to stay humble because the work is massive,” said Papadato. “We cannot tackle all the issues at once. But we can say that as municipalities, as a metropole, we have a big lever which is collective catering and it’s a real way to change the food system.”
Spending a few hours every two months with the Food Policy Council to meet our peers, suppliers, processors, customers, restaurateurs, and local policymakers allows me to step back, contribute to densifying an ecosystem, and even fosters solidarity among us
Through the FoodTrails project, Bordeaux Metropole is working on further data collection and indicators on food resilience, and an independent assessment will also be commissioned in 2025 or 2026.
This evidence-based approach is crucial to ensure the policy is well designed and can withstand political and personnel shifts over the long-term.
The next step is to engage residents more closely and a campaign will be launched soon to share information about the goals of the region when it comes to food sustainability and the role that individual choices and shopping habits can play.
Papadato said: “It’s important to have not only your top-down way of working with citizens but really to have a more collective way of thinking about the food system.”
Here, the Food Policy Council has a big role to play thanks to its partnerships with local governments, social centres and NGOs that have direct contact with citizens.
For other regions and cities keen to strengthen their own food resilience, Bozzo Rey advises: “You have to dare to think big, think long-term, and be open to involving everyone.”
