The 24hr Food & Sustainability Hackathon Vol. IV: Highlight Report — Photo by IU International University of Applied Sciences

4 universities, 10 questions, 24 hours, 45 students and one aim: devise practical, hands-on and actionable solution to activate and support a sustainable food system with a lens on the gastronomy and hospitality sectors.

Topics and questions included:

  • Food sourcing and biodiversity: How to make the right decisions?
  • Equitable trade in supply chain: How to support adequate working conditions and livelihood upstream along the supply chain?
  • Healthy and sustainable diets and menu design: Who should lead key guiding principles and actions (consumer or business) to ensure both human and environmental health?
  • Circular thinking/Circular approach in Hotel/Restaurant Food Management: Beyond take-make-waste, what does circularity look like in food and beverage management and practices?
  • Decent work in Hotels/Restaurants: How do we make the F&B trade a great place for work for current and future generations (in all positions)?
  • Innovation and tech in managing food: What are the innovations that are a must today and what should a restaurant keep an eye on?
  • Transparency & guest communication: How do we show that we have transparent processes in everything we do in a restaurant all the way to our communication?
  • Nudging them the right way: How can ‘nudges’ be used in restaurants to make guests behave in a more sustainable fashion?

The idea behind a hackathon is the gathering, in this case virtually, of students and experts who care about the same issues (i.e. eating better, more responsibly in a post-COVID-19 world) and who can quickly collaborate, form bonds, share knowledge and solve problems. Students across institutions and with diverse fields of study (i.e. sustainable hospitality management, gastronomy studies, biology major, organic agriculture studies) demonstrate radical shifts may be required in some aspects of the global food system or how continuous improvement can look like in other parts of the existing food production, distribution and consumption stages. Most importantly, the hackathon once again demonstrated the importance and value of multi-disciplinary collaboration in advancing sustainability both in new thinking-approaches and developing hands-on applicable solutions.

The 24hr Food & Sustainability Hackathon Vol. IV: Tasteful Transformation (January 20-21 2022) was organized and presented by the IU International University of Applied Sciences (DE), and the Hotel Management School Maastricht (NL), with additional participation from students at the Julius Maximilians University of Würzburg (DE) and the University of Hohenheim (DE).

Download full report hackathon details with experts’ quotes, and outcome here.
A special thank you to the experts:

  • Francesca Zampollo, Author of the Food Design Thinking methodology | Founder of Online School of Food Design©
  • Sabine Zikeli, Executive Director, University of Hohenheim Center for Organic Farming
  • Caroline Morrow, Tourism Development Specialist at Bannikin Travel & Tourism
  • Anna de Visser-Amundson, Research Fellow in Marketing at Hotelschool The Hague (HTH), The Netherlands
  • Nikki Rose, Founder-Director Crete's Culinary Sanctuaries Educational Network, Crete, Greece.
  • Benjamin Lephilibert, Founder of LightBlue Environmental Consulting
  • Frauke Fischer, Founder, Agentur Auf!

The 24hr Food & Sustainability Hackathon organising and moderating team:

  • Prof. Dr. Willy Legrand, Department of Hospitality, Tourism and Event Management, IU International University of Applied Sciences, Germany
  • Prof. Dr. Dai-In Danny Han, Research Centre Future of Food, Zuyd University of Applied Sciences, The Netherlands
  • Prof. Dr. Gabriel C. M. Laeis, Department of Hospitality, Tourism and Event Management, IU International University of Applied Sciences, Germany

Willy Legrand
Prof, Department of Hospitality, Tourism and Event Management
+49 (0) 2224 9605 209
IU International University of Applied Sciences

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