RELISH Policy Brief: Recipes for Just Food Systems Transformations

This policy brief addresses an implementation gap between EU sustainability and cultural heritage initiatives. EU strategies increasingly recognise the interdependencies in food policy agendas; however, delivery remains fragmented across policy sectors. The document demonstrates that recipes provide a practical meeting point for European food policy agendas, particularly in leveraging culturally and behaviourally informed frameworks for ingredient substitution to achieve sustainable and just food transitions. The brief presents early empirical evidence from a RELISH typicality survey for ingredient substitution as a potential policy tool. The survey’s main policy implication is that traditional dishes are simultaneously structured and flexible. That is, culinary identity has an empirically investigable structure, thus displaying structured flexibility. The framework makes possible moving beyond generic calls for holistic or culturally appropriate food recommendations, toward targeted tests that identify where ingredient adaptation for sustainability goals is feasible, for whom, and under what safeguards. Recommendations At-a-Glance: Require staged substitution assessments Incorporate cultural heritage into EU Farm to Fork strategies Pilot recipe-level change in public food settings Connect existing EU food systems and heritage innovation portfolios Use substitution to advance biodiversity and circularity without greenwashing Make culinary and ingredient transitions socially just Treat culinary heritage as living, plural, and revisable Build provenance-rich data and responsible digital tools for ingredient substitution recommendations Relevant/Priority EU Policies and Programmes: Farm to Fork (F2F); CAP (post-2027); EU Biodiversity Strategy 2030; European Green Deal; Food 2030; Circular Economy Action Plan; The European Framework for Action on Cultural Heritage; European Agenda for Culture / Creative Europe; EU School Schemes; EU Quality Schemes The report is a deliverable (D2.1) for the European Union-funded RELISH (Reframing European gastronomy Legacy through Innovation, Sustainability and Heritage) project, which innovates culinary recipes as digital and cultural tools to promote food heritage and connect with emerging adults.