Belgium

Sustainable Rice programme highlights for 2025

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 2025

Based on Rikolto's Good Food at School pilots, the city of Leuven developed a model to support schools in implementing a Whole School Food Approach (WSFA). To do this, the city is making use of a co-financing scheme launched by the Flemish government in 2025. Leuven has also been included in the Flemish government's Inspiration Guide as an example for local authorities in the region. Also, in 2025, after three years of implementation, the EU-funded SchoolFood4Change project provided strong evidence of the benefits of the Whole School Food Approach. Reaching 3,863 schools across 22 countries worldwide, the coalition published a comprehensive report for policymakers. In the same year, Rikolto and its partners received EU LIFE funding to expand the Superlist Environment project across Europe. This research and campaign assess supermarkets’ performance on climate policy, protein shift, sustainable agriculture and food waste. Using these results, Rikolto aims to encourage retailers and governments to develop policies for ecological sustainability.

Sustainable Cocoa and Coffee programme highlights for 2025

Rikolto contributed to a more coherent sustainability agenda in Belgium's cocoa and coffee sectors through active participation in coalitions such as VOICE, VOCAL and Beyond Chocolate, engaging also in joint advocacy on EU legislation. A key initiative in 2025 was Superlist Social, a study comparing how five Belgian retailers approach human rights, gender equality and fair treatment of farmers. Developed with Questionmark, Oxfam Belgium and Fairtrade Belgium, the first edition highlighted cocoa and living income as key indicators. We shared the findings widely to inspire retailers and sector actors.