The Urban Food Processing Hubs Concept, part of the FUSILLI project, proposes a sustainable model to connect food processing with the urban environment, addressing excess produce from urban gardens.
Long abstract:
Research on urban food production has largely focused on primary food production (so-called urban farming), while the subsequent steps of the food chain have rarely been studied. The concept, developed by Tecnoalimenti as part of the FUSILLI project (https://fusilliproject. eu/), refers to an alternative and experimental model for linking food processing with the urban environment in order to meet citizens' needs. This concept aims to provide a preliminary evaluation of an 'Urban Food Processing Hub' within the municipality, which should be the urban hub for transforming surplus food from urban gardens into processed food. The generic feasibility of this concept has been preliminarily studied using data from the North Italian Municipalities' urban gardens, which are characterised by a seasonal urban horticultural overproduction of tomatoes. The hub concept has shown the feasibility of preventing the possible loss of summer overproduction by transforming tomatoes into tomato sauce. The tomato sauce would then be given back to the citizens or could be used in the municipal canteens. In addition, the food processing hub should be seen as a transformation hub for fruit and vegetable products that do not meet the marketing standards of the large retailers but are still safe to eat (e.g. class II fruit) and/or surplus products from city markets, canteens or large retailers. The concept of Urban Food Processing Hubs represents a new sustainable theory that aims to redesign the actual urban food system.