icleieurope 8d ago

FoodCLIC brought together representatives from Tbilisi, Tirana, Freiburg, Thessaloniki and Wroclaw for a four-day peer-to-peer exchange hosted in Tbilisi, Georgia. Each city shared a concrete challenge, an ongoing initiative and the lessons emerging from its local experience. Across very different contexts, several common barriers emerged, including fragmented responsibilities across municipal departments, changing political priorities, reliance on short-term project funding and difficulties in turning innovative initiatives into long-term structural change. The exchange also highlighted a range of practical solutions already being tested across the five cities. These included electric municipal trucks collecting produce from small farms to reduce transport costs for farmers in Tirana, citizen science surveys co-designed with residents to address data gaps in Thessaloniki, food donation legislation creating a legal framework for surplus redistribution in Tbilisi, crisis food management protocols informed by real flood experience in Wroclaw, and Planetary Health Diet principles integrated into catering and school canteens in Freiburg. The exchange showed the value of creating spaces where cities can move beyond formal presentations, discuss challenges openly and learn from each other’s experiences.