ROOTED: Co-creating Landed Community Kitchens as care and equity-centred urban service infrastructures for sustainable food system transformation

Addressing the increasing polarization of the food system, rising food insecurity, geopolitical events that threaten food resilience, and the need to develop integrated approaches to food system transformation, ROOTED offers place-based pathways by working with an international network of pioneering community-led organisations: Landed Community Kitchens (LCKs). LCKs are social and solidarity economy enterprises that address food insecurity and social inclusion while striving to source their food from local, sustainable and often agroecological producers in urban and peri-urban areas, typically a range of small community-based producers such as urban farms and gardens, allotments, Community Supported Agriculture initiatives (CSAs) or community gardens.Differently from surplus food-based food sharing spaces such as food banks, soup kitchens, public diners or community pantries, these kitchens are “rooted” within local networks of sustainable food producers.They are emerging social innovations with significant potential to reshape food environments, by creating a novel neighbourhood service infrastructure that (1) transforms food and social cultures through the normalisation of community-led convivial spaces of solidarity and care; (2) enables food-related behavioural change by creating opportunities to cook, grow food and access food with others, regardless of financial means; and (3) transforms food environments by making sustainable food sourcing the easiest choice. Through a multi-actor approach and a network of 50+ kitchens in 20 cities and 8 countries, working with local stakeholders in 8 living labs, ROOTED will support the development of a mix of policy measures and governance models for LCKs, will develop resilient LCKs business models and urban infrastructures, and support the consolidation of pioneering LCKs prototypes as novel neighbourhood infrastructures that transforms food environments, food cultures and food behaviours.