Introducing ‘let eat be’

It all began with an idea, driven by a profound desire to understand how the sustainability of the European food system could be improved. Through hundreds of hours of intense collaboration, collective effort, and the exceptional insight and expertise of the coordinating team, this proposition transformed into a proposal and, five years later, to a fully realised project: the Strength2Food project, ² a European Union-funded research initiative under the Horizon 2020 program, running from 2016 to 2021, aiming at improving the sustainability and effectiveness of food systems in Europe and beyond by focusing on quality food products, short food supply chains, and public sector food procurement. The project was built on ten work packages, and this book emerged from the collaboration of the research team working on the qualitative approach to consumers (work package 8). The primary objective was to observe and gain a deeper understanding of how European consumers perceive, value, trust, and particularly purchase and utilize EU, national, and regional food quality labels. ³ In the qualitative part, special emphasis was placed on using ethnographic fieldwork to explore and identify discrepancies between consumers’ expressed valuations and their actual food consumption practices, including planning, purchasing, using/cooking/eating, and disposal. Furthermore, the study investigated consumers’ perceptions and demands for additional or modified policy measures to enhance sustainable food chains.