Health and climate are two key challenges facing cities around the world – Dortmund is recognising the link between these two issues with its approach to food provision in municipal institutions, starting with its FABIDO daycare centres.
The City of Dortmund decided to address agriculture and food in its municipal climate action plan, which launched in 2021 and is described by the city as “one of the most ambitious climate action plans in Germany that takes into account food systems”.
It is estimated that Dortmund could save over 200,000 tons of CO2 emissions annually by 2030 through altering agricultural practices and dietary habits, and minimising food waste.
There are around 100 city FABIDO daycare centres across Dortmund. Daniel Kunstleben, Managing Director of the City of Dortmund’s FABIDO programme, said that the sustainable food strategy is about “making growing up healthy in Dortmund even better.”
“Citizens are encouraged and empowered from an early age to eat and act responsibly,” he commented.
The approach has been recognised internationally and is shortlisted in the Eurocities Awards, which will be held during the Eurocities Annual Conference in Cluj-Napoca in May.
The sustainable food strategy is about “making growing up healthy in Dortmund even better.
Procurement lever
Kunstleben noted that procurement – changing the way food is bought — is a major lever the city is using to “steadily increase the share of organic and regional food products” used in FABIDO kitchens.
A foundational step was to streamline the number of suppliers that can be used by the 46 FABIDO kitchens and secure better bulk buying deals with those suppliers.
“There is reporting and management in place that helps us to see what each of these kitchens is buying, and how we can help the people working in these kitchens to optimise the management of their kitchen even further so that we improve the quality of food,” said Kunstleben.
Kitchens are encouraged to make climate-friendly choices when placing orders, such as prioritising organic, regional and seasonal food.
In addition, suppliers are subject to framework contracts which place stipulations on the range and quality of products they need to offer. Orders must be delivered to the kitchens in good time and the framework also requires good working conditions for staff at suppliers.
“[Suppliers] have to offer a huge amount of products that are biologically made so if they don’t have this in their catalogue, they won’t be able to get a deal with us,” Kunstleben explained.
The city’s goal is to find suppliers locally where possible to reduce food miles. This means sellers need to be able to fulfil orders at the scale required by the city and the city needs to provide some certainty for farmers and producers about long-term demand.
“It’s a very progressive way of managing things,” Kunstleben commented. “It’s a process environmentally, politically and economically. It’s a big change and we have to get all the people involved in this process.”
It’s a process environmentally, politically and economically. It’s a big change and we have to get all the people involved in this process.
Recipes for success
Alongside procurement, careful meal planning by the daycare centres is an important part of the climate-friendly and healthy food strategy. For example, meat is limited to once per week due to its impact on greenhouse gas emissions.
Recipes are certified according to the principles of optimised mixed diets, and menus are monitored by the department of child nutrition.
Meal plans from Dortmund’s municipal daycare centres were reviewed and received an award as part of a project called ‘MehrWert’ run by the Consumer Association of North Rhine-Westphalia. The project resulted in a cookbook with climate-friendly recipes for communal catering, which is now used by the staff across daycare centres.
Ruth Duhme, Manager of one of the FABIDO daycare centres in Dortmund, said: “When parents and children enter our [centre], the first thing they are interested in is the menu board on the left. Children and parents talk about the menu of the day which is illustrated with photos so that children can see for themselves.”
She added: “The cookbook that FABIDO developed is a guideline to help maintain a high standard of food quality. This also gives parents a good idea what it really means and provides a chance for them to use these good options in their everyday life.”
Another important pillar of the strategy is to give children hands-on experience with growing and making food. For example, they can get involved in harvesting fruit and vegetables in gardens. In addition, 150 raised beds, 113 nesting boxes and 114 large insect hotels have been built for FABIDO centres.
Duhme said: “Children are able to experience a nearly complete food chain, starting with the basics, in their own vegetable garden, where the children grow, pick, taste and sometimes even cook their own vegetarian meals in the group kitchen.
Children are able to experience a nearly complete food chain, starting with the basics, in their own vegetable garden, where the children grow, pick, taste and sometimes even cook their own vegetarian meals in the group kitchen.
“Here, children gain an understanding of the impact it has on our planet to eat healthily and naturally. We visit a farm as part of our educational programme to give children an even broader understanding of the importance of being environmentally friendly.”
The daycare centres also try to engage parents, Duhme said. “They are invited to workshops to do with healthy eating, making sure their food culture is included.”
Taking the strategy to the next level
So far, around 8,000 children and families in Dortmund have been reached through projects and activities related to healthy and sustainable food.
Due to the changes in procurement, the share of organically produced food used in FABIDO centres rose from 10% in 2019 to 35% in 2023.
The city notes that it is challenging to accurately validate the decrease in CO2 emissions through measures such as meat reduction. However, “many daycare centres have reported that parents are now also increasingly turning to healthier organic products and fairtrade products, showing the long-term effectiveness of the activities,” said Kunstleben.
In line with the city’s climate plan, the approach used at FABIDO centres is laying the groundwork for expansion to other institutions.
“The environmental agency is having a lot of talks with social agencies, with hospitals and even with kindergartens that are not managed by the city,” Kunstleben explained, adding that including schools which currently use caterers is also a goal.
“That’s the next level of the strategy,” he said. “We want to get more people on the train and have a strategy that is shared by almost everybody working in the system so that the children always get access to quality food.”
We want to get more people on the train and have a strategy that is shared by almost everybody working in the system so that the children always get access to quality food.
In addition, the FABIDO team is working with the Department of Health at the county administration to create a monitoring system which shows the impact of access to healthy food on child health indicators, including reducing obesity.
“This is how we will continue to move the strategy and the budgets,” said Kunstleben.
On advice for other cities interested in replicating Dortmund’s work, he commented: “You can do it if you are willing to focus and to invest in infrastructure and the personnel resources.”
Dortmund is now looking at how it can create better local logistics infrastructure to support producers and suppliers in and around the city.
“There is a pool of little things you do as a county or as a city administration that you have to put together to get the whole picture,” Kunstleben concluded.
