Belgium

From 2014 onwards, we started building our expertise in making institutional kitchens from companies and schools more sustainable. This laid the foundations for the GoodFood@School approach, that we are currently also adopting in Indonesia, Vietnam etc. As of 2017, Belgium was one of the first countries where we started up our Good Food for Cities programme. Currently, we are running our Good Food for Cities programme in the cities of Antwerp, Ghent and Leuven; and we play our part in pushing for a more sustainable cocoa and coffee sector in Belgium. We also organise private fundraising campaigns in Belgium.

Good Food for Cities programme highlights for 2024

As part of the EU-funded SchoolFood4Change project, more than 12 countries, 3,000 schools and European cities and regions tested a revised Whole School Food Approach (WSFA) framework, including Leuven. Based on the WSFA principles, Rikolto also piloted a hot school meal model in Leuven. A report was presented to the city authorities to advocate for a more tailored support to the different school meal requirements. Rikolto facilitated regular spaces for sharing experiences and lessons learned from their pilot work in Antwerp, Ghent and Leuven. This peer-to-peer interaction inspired new models to support school meals in several cities. In the run-up to local, regional, national and European elections in 2024, Rikolto also worked with the Flemish government as part of the Flemish Food Strategy, to contribute to the design of two Food Deals: one to promote the supply of healthy and sustainable food in the catering sector, and the second to improve access for young people. Although we cannot attribute our precise influence, the new Flemish government, which took office in October 2024, included a €73 million annual fund to support local authorities in establishing healthy and sustainable school food policies. Discussions on the operational details of this co-financing model are ongoing. In parallel, Rikolto is involved in supporting eight European cities in the Erasmus+ Healthy Wave project, which promotes city-to-city mentoring to develop action plans for healthy school meals.

Sustainable Cocoa and Coffee programme highlights for 2024

Rikolto, in partnership with Fairtrade Belgium and Enabel, continued its engagement with the Beyond Chocolate platform to develop a living income initiative for the chocolate sector in Belgium. We engaged with Belgian retailers and chocolate companies to design an innovative, sector-wide purchasing model, building on our 2020–2023 pilot with Colruyt, Puratos and Fairtrade Belgium. However, rising global cocoa prices led most companies to pause new commitments, and the implementation of the model came to a halt. Nevertheless, we renewed our partnership with Colruyt, which now sources all cocoa for its house brand Boni from Côte d’Ivoire. We also remained active in the VOICE network, with our Global Cocoa and Coffee Director serving as Chair of the Board and contributing to the “cocoa call to action” campaign coordinated by VOICE members. Additionally, we organised a cocoa round table at the Food Conference, organised by the Flemish Government, with the Ambassador of Côte d’Ivoire. In the coffee sector, we took part in the creation of the VOCAL network.