Located in the Atlantic Ocean, the capital of the Portuguese island of Madeira, Funchal, is one of the most Westerly cities in the European Union, and its culinary tradition benefits from its maritime setting. Vineyards and banana plantations frame the island, accompanied by subtropical fruits and many flowers cultivated by the citizens.
The City of Funchal is a local authority aiming to improve the quality of life in the city and empower its inhabitants. The city has been engaging with the community through several projects dating as far back as 1994. Funchal is a member of the International Association of the Educating Cities and the Milan Urban Food Policy Pact (MUFPP).
Funchal has a strong environmental focus and through participation in Food Trails
worked to link these efforts with food sustainability. The participation in the Food Trails project allowed the city to empower and train the population in making more conscious choices, stimulating healthier and sustainable lifestyles. A Living Lab was established and the Municipality decided to test 2 pilot projects in line with 2 of the EU Food 2030 Policy pillars.
In 2023, thanks to the Food Trails project, Funchal launched its first Food Strategy, called ‘Semear’, co-designed after a great deal of bottom-up engagement work with local stakeholders and citizens.
Pilot 1 – Community Engagement. Events and educational activities around sustainable and healthy diets
Funchal empowered citizens on sustainable diets through events like ‘Funchal Food Week,’ offering
cooking demos, teacher training, and food literacy leaflets. Focusing on protein transition, the city also
celebrated ‘World Pulses Day’, successfully engaging different students and institutions. Another impactful results, was the opening of the ‘FunLab Science Centre’, an educational space which promotes food literacy through hands-on experiments and activities, supported by the University and Madeira.
Pilot 2 – Circularity. Empowering residents of social housing on composting and broader circular food waste practices
The food literacy activities were also promoted in the social housing districts of the city, on different topics such as prevention of food waste and cooking with surplus. Moreover, leaflets were distributed among residents to foster a culture of circularity and composting units were introduced and training was given to all the residents.
Living Lab in numbers
89,715
citizens engaged through
the Funchal Food Week events
1,245
social housing apartments in the
community composting pilot
44
stakeholders from 28 institutions partecipated in a series of focus group sessions in May/June
2023, leading to food policy development.
Funchal Food Policy is available in the report Official Municipal Acts for Urban Food Policy Approval.
The description of the city’s living labs is available in all the project languages in the Food Trails Final Publication. Go to the resource!
