Research

INTRODUCTION

Transforming the globalized and productionist agri-food system into a sustainable, diversified, regional, and resilient one is urgently needed (Clapp 2023, Lähde et al. 2023). This transformation must account for local specifics and the diversity of actors (Dengerink et al. 2021), including those who do not follow a capitalist logic (Koretskaya and Feola 2020). For a transformation, action is needed on both supply and demand sides of the agri-food system (López-García and Carrascosa-García 2024). Furthermore, a regionalized, sustainable agri-food system promotes short distribution circuits that strengthen urban-rural linkages (Sanz-Cañada et al. 2023). Many initiatives that address these conditions are part of alternative food networks (AFNs; Renting et al. 2003, Escobar-López et al. 2021, Gori and Castellini 2023).

However, a missing piece is an actor that can accelerate the transition by promoting both sustainable production and consumption of sustainable regional products. Many civic food networks have emerged to connect eaters and growers, such as multi-stakeholder cooperatives (Ajates 2021), consumer cooperatives (food co-ops; Steinman 2020), farmers’ markets (Brown and Miller 2008, Russomanno and Jabson Tree 2021), community-supported agriculture (CSA; Fomina et al. 2022, Sulistyowati et al. 2023), or box schemes (Kummer and Milestad 2020). Although all of these are part of AFNs, they (except for food co-ops) focus primarily on the production side.

However, food hubs (FHs) have emerged in the last decade as a new institutional model to support regional food systems and sustainability (Cleveland et al. 2014, Berti and Mulligan 2016, Rose 2017, Driessen 2021, Sgroi and Marino 2022, Shariatmadary et al. 2023). Whereas many studies focus on FHs as logistic centers (i.e., distribution points) or platforms aggregating and distributing local and regional food (Hyland and Macken-Walsh 2022), some also address food insecurity (Murphy et al. 2022, Perdana et al. 2022) or food access in urban areas (Rajasooriar and Soma 2022).

However, transforming the agri-food system requires a shift in how humans interact with nature, being part of a broader social-ecological system (Oteros-Rozas et al. 2019, McGreevy et al. 2022). This transformation of the agri-food system needs to go beyond logistics and include relational values that reconnect eaters and growers, people with nature (Pascual et al. 2023, West et al. 2024), addressing the root causes of human-nature disconnection (Beery et al. 2023). Some FHs models, such as community FHs with nonmarket objectives (Curry 2021), cooperative FHs (Nicol and Taherzadeh 2020), and FHs using the convivial food systems approach (Ballantyne-Brodie and Glover 2021), already incorporate some of these social-ecological principles.

These solutions often arise from civil society, such as grassroots movements, as well as from Indigenous peoples, or regional or local administrations, rather than from academia (Rossi 2017, Kropp et al. 2021). This fact brings many challenges for researchers working with such initiatives. Therefore, a transdisciplinary transformative and co-design approach (Busse et al. 2023) is needed, with multiple roles for actors to co-create sustainable solutions to societal challenges (Riccaboni et al. 2021). One such approach is the living lab (Hossain et al. 2019), which can be defined by eight characteristics, namely: (1) real-life environments, (2) stakeholders, (3) activities, (4) business models and networks, and (5) methods, tools, and approaches to co-design (6) innovative outcomes for (7) challenges and (8) sustainability. The living lab, ultimately, allows for the generation of scientific evidence of the impacts of co-developed solutions.

In this study, we selected a prototype of a community-based, non-profit FH in Berlin, Germany, and created with the FH initiators a living lab focused on three activities: delivery of food from 10 CSAs, community dinners, and food rescuing. We used participatory methods following citizen science principles during the whole process. This methodology was based on co-design, co-develop, and co-creation, from the beginning of the study to the assessment of the outcomes, using different methods and engaging different actors. The study was divided into two main phases, reflexive and transformative, each one aimed at addressing a goal, which was co-designed in agreement with the FH leaders. Thus, we aimed to: (1) assess the social-ecological impacts of the three selected activities, and (2) explore their transformative potential to scale the FH and its activities to the whole city-region. After four years of living lab research, we identify key insights and challenges for future research in living labs aimed at transforming the agri-food system.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

The food hub prototype (LebensMittelPunkt) and its three main activities as a living lab

“Das Baumhaus” is a nonprofit FH prototype (i.e., a pilot of a FH) in Berlin, located in the district of Mitte, in the neighborhood of Wedding and Gesundbrunnen (Fig. 1). This FH (LebensMittelPunkt in German) has organized different activities around the topic of food since 2020. Before the start of the activities from 2020 and until spring 2021, and under COVID-19 restrictions, the methodology, goals of the research, and a key performance indicator (KPI) were co-designed with the FH leaders and other actors, such as the Berlin Food Policy Council (Ernährungsrat Berlin).

During this time, three activities (CSA delivery, community dinner, food rescuing) were identified as relevant and commonly agreed to be assessed. This is because of two reasons: (1) they formed the core of the identity of the LebensMittelPunkt (i.e., FH concept) at that time, and (2) they are expected to be impactful and, therefore, their replication to other FHs in the city could foster the food system transformation in Berlin-Brandenburg (Klebl et al. 2022). Therefore, these three activities (i.e., prototype activities, hereafter) were selected for their monitoring and assessment within the living lab. The living lab becomes, thus, an instrument to assess the two objectives of this study: to study the social-ecological impacts from the FH, represented by its three relevant prototype activities, and their potential contribution to the regional food system transformation.

The living lab created, representing the prototype of a LebensMittelPunkt (Klebl et al. 2022), fulfils the aims of a real-world lab (Bergmann et al. 2021; see Table 1 for a description of its key characteristics as a living lab). It could be classified as an “Explore and Shape” sustainability-oriented lab (McCrory et al. 2022), because of the complexity of its overall goal (agri-food system transformation in the region), systemic perspective, and high uncertainty. It goes, therefore, beyond an urban living lab approach (Bulkeley et al. 2016) and beyond being an intermediary between consumers and producers (LebensMittelPunkte Berlin 2024). In line with Blay-Palmer et al. (2013), the FH is not only a distribution point but a space of social interaction, building community and fostering social justice among different actors, based on a bottom-up approach. Thus, in this study, we created a living lab in a FH prototype, focused on three prototype activities. We describe below these activities, which can be placed within the realm of urban food sharing (Table 2).

FH activity 1: CSA delivery

The FH acts as a common distribution point of CSAs (SoLaWi, Solidarische Landwirtschaft, “solidarity agriculture” in German) from the region based on an application of the principles of agroecology. It is defined, thus, as an agroecology-based regional FH (Klebl et al. 2022, Vicente-Vicente et al. 2023). The CSA delivery takes place typically once a week during the growing season, whereas in winter it can take place once every two weeks. The majority of the CSA farms are located in the region surrounding Berlin, the state of Brandenburg, whereas two of them are in the state of Saxony, very close to the border with Brandenburg (Fig. 1). The farmers deliver products to the FH, where they are picked up by CSA members. Before picking them up, some CSA members arrive early and sort out the shares following the instructions provided by the farms. The sorting is self-organized and the members develop their own communication channels between each other (Fig. 2a).

FH activity 2: community dinners

The social factor is also of high importance in the FH concept (Fig. 2b). Therefore, community dinners (Küfa, Küche für Alle, “kitchen for everyone” in German) are organized regularly. They took place once per week in this FH (whenever there were fewer restrictions because of the COVID-19 regulations). The dynamic of the dinner is as follows: Some volunteers arrive a couple of hours before the dinner to help the FH team select ingredients, agree on a recipe, and cook it. The dinner starts at 8 pm. Before eating, a FH representative explains the regional- and solidarity-based origins of the meal and mentions that while the dinner is free, voluntary contributions are welcome. After dinner, the “news you can use” segments begins, where attendees can share and ask for information, services, or items (e.g., furniture repair, language translation).

FH activity 3: food rescuing

Some of the products in the community dinners are the result of food rescuing, which can come from stores and citizens from the neighborhood. Although they usually refer to “foodsharing” in the FH, taking a broader and contemporary social meaning of foodsharing as a form of cooperation, it is also often referred to as “collaborative consumption,” “solidarity economies,” or “sharing economies” (Martin 2016, Davies and Legg 2018), all of the activities developed at the FH could thus be categorized as foodsharing (Table 2).

Framework and methodology

Our study falls within transdisciplinary science work. Considering that a food system is a human-nature coupled system (Oteros-Rozas et al. 2019), we decided to adopt a social-ecological approach (Liu et al. 2021). We applied Tittonell’s (2023) two-phase process (Fig. 3). The first, so-called “reflexive” phase is aimed at assessing the current situation under a critical and systemic perspective. However, this is not the end of the process, but rather the social-ecological knowledge generated in the living lab is used to transform the food system (“transformative phase”), with the overall goal of scaling the FH in a three-dimensional way (scaling deep, out, and up), based on assessing the transformative potential of the FH as a concept (i.e., LebensMittelPunkt) and its activities.

In order to operationalize this framework, we developed our own methodology (Fig. 4), by applying the core characteristics of the living lab (i.e., real-life setting, multi-actor, multi-method, co-creation, co-learning, and innovation) to the framework (see Table 1). Both phases, reflexive and transformative, were developed by following citizen science principles (ECSA 2015, Senabre Hidalgo et al. 2021). Their application in a living lab requires the use of different participatory methods and the engagement of the different actors in the FH (FH leaders, food citizens, famers, policymakers) during the whole process, which is a continuous process in a real-life environment. These steps in our methodology have a direct translation into the different characteristics of a living lab (see Fig. 4).

Although we focused on the FH’s prototype activities in Berlin, this study was built upon previous investigations in which we assessed the social-ecological impacts of CSA farms that deliver the food to the FH (Vicente-Vicente et al. 2023), explored the outcomes of co-designed sustainable diets with relevant actors (Walthall et al. 2022), and studied potential out-scaling of the FHs to the whole city of Berlin (Klebl et al. 2022, 2024). The first step to assess the impacts of the FH’s prototype activities was to select a KPI. Considering that all of the activities involved food, we held meetings with FH leaders, including some with the Berlin Food Policy Council, and decided to use food flows (weight and origin of each food product) as biophysical KPIs (Fig. 4). We, in parallel, decided on how the KPIs would be used for monitoring the outcomes of the living lab. The CSA monitoring involved recording the weight of all food products upon arrival at the FH through three activities. We used weekly delivery notes from the farms and weighed items delivered by unit (i.e., piece, bundle). Data were collected over one year, from May 2021 to May 2022. To do this, we developed a protocol as guidelines for FH members to support the research team in this task. A similar process was applied to the community dinners and rescued food, where not only the weight of all the products but also their origin was monitored. In this case, the frequency of measurements was every time a community dinner took place (this was highly affected by COVID-19 restrictions and only eight dinners could be assessed) and any rescued food was collected at the FH. In the beginning of the CSA monitoring, at least two people from the research team were present for measurements. Over time, once the protocol was established, data could be collected by just one researcher or a person with non-scientific background. Measurements were taken twice a week for one year. For community dinners, the protocol for measuring the weight and origin of products was explained before every dinner, allowing the cooking team to collect the required data.

Even though the KPI was biophysical, it had social-ecological implications (shifting diets, regionalization of the food system; Fig. 3). Furthermore, this monitoring was complemented by participatory observation and participatory action research (PAR) during the three activities. The research team participated in the prototype activities to understand the processes taking place and later apply the transformative potential framework (TPoF) to the three activities. Participation was especially important during the community dinners, where two research team members were present, also assisting with cooking. We focused on the interactions between participants in the cooking as well as during the dinner. Sometimes we just observed these interactions, and other times we asked about specific aspects while cooking or eating. The PAR with farmers is explained in Vicente-Vicente et al. (2023). The Planetary Health Diet (PHD) was initially selected for evaluating the community dinners. It provides guidelines to ranges of different food groups for generating an optimal diet for environmental sustainability and human health, where consumption of animal-based products is reduced in favor of plant-based ones (Willett et al. 2019, EAT n.d.). The PHD was chosen because it emerged during the co-design process as a key guideline for FH leaders in planning the dinners. We grouped the dinner products by PHD categories and used their recommended proportions as the bases for our assessment. We used participatory methods not only to understand the processes taking place during prototype activities as well as their social-ecological impacts (reflexive approach) but also to co-create pathways to scale the FH (transformative approach; Fig. 4). Our study became, thus, a transdisciplinary action research (Lam et al. 2021), based on a co-design, co-develop, and co-creation approach, resulting in a transformative transdisciplinary intervention (Busse et al. 2023). Some of these processes were shown in a documentary movie (Seeds of change: tracking the food system transformation 2023).

We applied the TPoF developed by Tuckey et al. (2023) to assess the transformative potential of the three prototype activities and the LebensMittelPunkt as a concept. Three main features (learning practices, empowerment, and networking) and 21 sub-features comprise this framework. Learning practices involve creating knowledge that fosters transformative learning and new shared visions and meanings. Empowerment enables actors to challenge existing power structures and create spaces for social-ecological transformation. Finally, networking refers to building social networks and fostering resource distribution. We applied the TPoF because of its empiric applicability and equivalence to the “three-dimensional scaling” (i.e., scaling up, down, and deep), which has been proven effective in studying the scaling of agroecology-based initiatives in city-regions (Nicol 2020; Fig.3). However, because we are analyzing only one initiative (i.e., one “seed”) in this case, we modified the analysis after the application of the TPoF and, instead of developing a qualitative comparative analysis (Tuckey et al. 2023), we scored (0–5) each sub-feature previously identified as being addressed by the living lab. When evaluating each sub-feature, we differentiated between the three prototype activities developed by the FH and the FH as concept. For the prototype activities we used the food flows as the initial factor to be considered when giving a score. The final score results from the measurement of the KPI in combination with insights from the participatory research (i.e., social dynamics taking place during the development of the three activities). Applying the TPoF to them allows us to identify which sub-feature is being addressed by using its full (or close to full) transformative potential and which ones still have room for improvement to scale the FH and its three activities. After obtaining the results from the TPoF we developed a series of meetings and workshops with the FH leaders in order to co-create pathways to scaling the FHs. The participatory observation and PAR allowed us to (1) complement the measurements of the KPI to assign a score to each sub-feature of the TPoF, and (2) to give insights to co-create with the FH leaders pathways for scaling the FH and the activities. Finally, by applying three-dimensional scaling, we give an overview of the contribution of the living lab approach to scaling the FH.

RESULTS

CSA food delivery and product portfolio monitoring

The one-year monitoring of the CSA deliveries showed a total of 10,548 kg from around 150 food products (see Appendix 1).^[1] The number of weekly harvest shares increased from May until the end of June because only one CSA was distributing to the FH at the beginning of the measurements and the other four started deliveries gradually. Moreover, May 2021 was a relatively cold month in the region and, thus, there was not enough production for a weekly delivery in one CSA at the beginning. From the end of June until the beginning of December, the number of shares remained stable, between 50 and 60 shares per week. During the winter holidays there was a stop in the deliveries, which was followed by a delivery once every two weeks in two of the five CSAs, until March, when the other three CSAs started the deliveries once every two weeks as well. Finally, production started to increase, and accordingly frequencies of deliveries, at the end of May 2022.

The food delivered reached the highest diversity between the end of September and beginning of October, also achieving the greatest amount of food delivered weekly (Fig. 5). However, there were differences between products that are perishable and those that can be easily stored and delivered weeks or months later. Spring and summer vegetables were distributed in the same week they were harvested and, therefore, were strictly seasonal, with the exception of those produced in greenhouses in winter. In contrast, winter and non-seasonal products were distributed in non-summer months with the aim of compensating for lower production and diversity at that time (Fig. 6). Potatoes are an important crop (1762 kg), which are typically stored and distributed throughout the entire year. Carrots (1297 kg), onions (276 kg), and apples (400 kg) are similar cases. Crops with a relative long seasonality and high production typically from autumn and winter are cabbages (848 kg), beetroots (519 Kg), celery (248 kg), and leeks (221 kg). In the case of pumpkins, however, we found a high amount of distributed product (664 kg), which was mainly concentrated in the autumn (see Appendix 2 for detailed information).

A total of 1100 kg of 20 other vegetables and groups of vegetables were distributed (e.g., eggplants, broccoli, chard, radishes, turnips, and asparagus), mainly between March and October. Legumes represented a small proportion of the food distributed overall (110 kg). They were distributed as green, therefore, they were delivered immediately after being harvested. A similar group of products were herbs (139 kg). Apart from apples, 57 kg of other fruit (melons, strawberries, pears, plums, and quinces) were distributed. An amount of 21 kg of berries were distributed during the summer months. Wild edible plants (17 kg) were found to be distributed during non-summer months.

Community dinners

We measured the weight of products consumed in eight of the community dinners from September to November 2021.^[2] The total amount of food per community dinner ranged between 7 and 19 kg (Fig. 7). The number of attendees varied, ranging between 15 and 25.^[3] However, this was not an issue in the measurements, because our focus was on evaluating the amount and proportion of the different ingredients used in the dinners. There was no food waste from the dinners, because the leftover food was distributed among the attendees to take home. The majority of the products came from a CSA, and were typically vegetables (Fig. 7). The products that came from the supermarkets were those that were not produced by the CSA (e.g., margarine, flour, nuts, or lentils) or were produced in a smaller amount than the demand for the community dinners (e.g., apples, onions, or ginger). The proportion of different products varied depending on the week. Vegetables accounted for the highest food group consumed (mean = 64%), followed by fruit (mean = 20%), starchy vegetables (mean = 11%), whole grains (mean = 3%), and a very small amount of protein sources (legumes and nuts, 1 % and 0.5 %, respectively). No animal-based products or fish were consumed.

Food rescuing

Only 27 kg of food was rescued in one year. Donations were the major source in this category. The origin was mainly from one CSA of which the FH is a member. Food rescue shares coming from this CSA were preselected to collect the parts and products that remain edible. No food from the remaining four CSA farms was registered as rescued. To a lesser extent, rescued food also came from stores in the neighborhood that bring food that is close to its expiration date to the FH. Organic stores provided mainly bread, whereas the rescued vegetables came from the CSA farm.

Application of the transformative potential framework (TPoF)

The results of the TPoF show that the FH accounts for a score of 19/21, addressing all the sub-features from the learning practices and empowerment features and 4/6 from the networking (Fig. 8). We observe that the three prototype activities are addressed regarding many features; however, the individual levels might have been affected through a limited or altered scope of practices as a result of the COVID-19 restrictions. We can generally assume more favorable effects for the CSA delivery but negative effects on the community dinners and food rescuing, compared to before and after the restrictions.

Regarding the first feature, transforming learning practices to create mind shifts toward sustainability were found to be fostered through the community dinners and CSA deliveries, achieving both intermediate scores, typically 2–3. However, there were exceptions. The CSA deliveries were found to foster trust strongly among actors, whereas the community dinners fostered a community of practices robustly. The FH as an initiative per se, acting as a FH prototype of a LebensMittelPunkt, was found to have created an institution fostering the creation, acceptance, and spread of new visions and shared meaning by initiating the encounter and engagement of diverse actors (e.g., FH team, farmers, CSA members, volunteers, guests, researchers, food sharers, neighbors, friends). Finally, food rescuing was found to achieve low levels.

When analyzing the empowering of agents and innovations, we found that the activities imply a radical deviation from global mainstream norms and practices (i.e., around the limits of growth, food sovereignty, or the solidarity economic model), with food rescuing achieving intermediate scores. We found that the community dinners created a context that empowers social actors, for example, through self-organization, collective decision-making, and the co-creation of knowledge and skills (e.g., recipes selection and preparation in the community kitchen). Moreover, as in the case of CSA deliveries, they were found to already foster processes that reduce dependence on existing power structures and strengthen links between social and ecological practices (e.g., delivery of perishable products with unappealing aspects, support by members for the farmers in farming activities, creation of recipes at home based on seasonal and regional products). Nevertheless, there is still room for improvement in these two practices. On the other hand, CSA deliveries were found to encourage experimentation and risk-taking. We found that the FH is an institution that already challenges existing power structures by conducting multiple kinds of work involving social and ecological knowledge.

Finally, we found that building networks of support for actors and innovations was not found through the three prototype activities themselves but through its multifunctional activity as a FH project space. The latter establishes linkages with actors with similar goals and interests and operating on similar scales (e.g., other FHs, farmers). It also fosters the creation and strengthening of linkages with power holders on higher scales (Food Policy Council, personnel from the administration, and policymakers). Finally, the FH manages very effectively to mobilize local and regional resources to sustain and expand the FH’s operations. Nevertheless, there is still room for improvement involving intermediaries that bridge relevant gaps in expanding the network and maintaining resource flows.

DISCUSSION

The monitoring of the food flows in the three activities as a KPI to assess their social-ecological impacts

One important issue we found in our previous works with stakeholders in the Berlin-Brandenburg region is that there is a general lack of knowledge about traditional crops and diets (Walthall et al. 2022). Although meat-free, vegetarian, and flexitarian diets are relatively common in Germany (Lummel 2016) and are perceived as environmentally friendly diets, seasonality and regionality factors are less obvious for people in the region. One of the main drawbacks of the PHD is that it considers neither regionality, seasonality, nor the production system (organic, agroecological, conventional), all features that the FH actually intends to strengthen. Although there are studies combining the PHD with specific sustainable and regional diets, such as the Mediterranean or New Nordic Diet (Mazzocchi et al. 2021), there is no such proposal for Central European countries. Indeed, there is evidence of divergence between the PHD and the guidelines of the German Nutrition Society because of this non-inclusion of regional conditions in the PHD (Breidenassel et al. 2022).

Thus, the first relevant outcome of our monitoring system is to shed light on what and how much can be produced throughout a diversified and sustainable regional agricultural system (see Appendix 1 for detailed information). Unsurprisingly, we found that vegetables, such as potatoes, cabbage, carrots, leeks, beetroots, and locally grown fruit, such as apples, are widely produced and consumed. These products are the basis of traditional meals in the area. However, we also found other highly produced crops in diversified agricultural systems that are either novel or related to old traditional farming knowledge, or a combination of these (i.e., retro-innovations; Vicente-Vicente et al. 2023). Lettuce and other leafy vegetables, for example, are produced throughout the year, combining production outdoors and inside greenhouses. We also found other tubers and root vegetables that are less well known but with a relatively high production whose distribution is from November to May, such as parsnip, yacón, and parsley root. The conditions are radically different in spring and summer (from May to October) and many different products can be produced in high amounts. Tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, zucchini, eggplants, and fennel are part of a diversified share that CSA members receive. However, the highly diversified agricultural system of the CSAs produces many more products. We found herbs to be a very frequent food that, by taking advantage of different and complementary seasonal growing periods, were distributed throughout the year. These herbs were not only aimed at being distributed to the CSA members, but have a key role in fostering pollination and natural pest control, as well as improving landscape features in the area (Vicente-Vicente et al. 2023).

However, we registered other crops that are currently cultivated to a low extent but whose cultivation could easily be spread. One such food group is legumes. We found that their production is restricted to a few species and distributed as green. By increasing their production and distributing them as dry (e.g., chickpeas, lentils) they could compensate for lower production in wintertime. Fruit is also a key group. Currently, only apples are a relevant food product in CSA deliveries. Other fruits, such as berries, melons, strawberries, plums, pears, and quinces, could be easily included. However, as we found out in a previous study with these CSA farms (Vicente-Vicente et al. 2023), these fruits are typically woody crops and, therefore, usually require several years before they reach significant yields. Moreover, long-term orientation is a crucial issue; farmers frequently do not own the land but lease it under short and unstable contracts, thus, encouraging farmers to cultivate annual crops (Vicente-Vicente et al. 2023).

Another less well-known product group, which also results from high diversification of these agroecology-based systems, are wild crops. One of the most important features of wild edible plants is that they do not require specific cultivation needs because they are already adapted to the pedoclimatic conditions of the area. They are often part of regional cultural practices and traditions (Rigat et al. 2009). Nevertheless, we found that they currently represent a very small fraction of the total products. However, this low representation could also be due to the lack of knowledge of the consumers regarding how to cook them. Faruk et al. (2024) found in a study in the South Caucasus that the harvest of wild edible plants was significantly correlated with age. In order to fill in this knowledge gap, we found a relatively common practice in the CSA deliveries, consisting of including a proposal of a recipe when there is an uncommon product or a product with a very high productivity concentrated in a few weeks.

We have summarized the information on the seasonality of the products we identified through the monitoring system in a season calendar (Fig. 9). The difference between this and currently existing vegetable calendars is that the latter usually show only the crops that are more produced and well known. Our aim is to show the wide variety of products that could be distributed from highly diversified agricultural systems so that they can help food citizens to create recipes based on a wide diversity of regional and seasonal food, which might be not only more sustainable but also healthier than current diets (Drescher et al. 2007).

Shifting diets, increasing regional food self-sufficiency, and reducing social-ecological impacts of the globalized food system

As we mentioned, we used the PHD to initially assess the sustainability and healthiness of the community dinners. The composition of the buffets (Fig. 7) shows that there is a dominance of fruits and vegetables, and to a lower extent the consumption of starchy vegetables and tubers (e.g., potatoes). This is not surprising, because vegetables are the most produced foods in the CSA farms and potato-based meals are typical for the region. The dinners did not include any animal sources. However, this was not compensated with an intake of proteins from plant sources, such as from nuts and legumes. As we have shown previously, these products are not commonly produced in the area, and in the community dinners they mainly came from organic supermarkets and not from CSA farms. Therefore, these results suggest that although the CSA farms could be contributing to meet the demand of some products, such as vegetables, it would not be the case for other products. Thus, it is of high interest to study these results in the context of the shift in diets and the regionalization of the food system. Selecting the quantity of each food product from the CSA farms as KPI allows us to discuss the potential implications of the regionalization of food systems.

One important implication is the increase in the potential food self-sufficiency. According to previous studies, we know that the Berlin-Brandenburg region could be food self-sufficient (Zasada et al. 2019). However, this is just a theoretical quantitative food modeling assessment based on a foodshed approach, as has been done for other city-regions (Vicente-Vicente et al. 2021a 2021b, Arciniegas et al. 2022, Sylla et al. 2022, Wang et al. 2023). In order to increase food self-sufficiency, shifts in diets and agricultural systems are needed (Vicente-Vicente and Piorr 2023). We found in a co-design scenario diet exercise particularly in Berlin-Brandenburg that flexitarian and vegetarian diets with a 50% reduction in animal products (and no meat or fish in the vegetarian diet) mainly from regional sources were the ones proposed by the relevant stakeholders (Walthall et al. 2022). This would result in a land footprint of 1352 and 1722 m² capita^-1 year^-1 for the vegetarian and flexitarian diets, respectively. Considering an average number of 50 shares, and that three people might be fed by each share, a total of 150 people are estimated to be fed by the CSA deliveries via the FH. Considering the current consumption and the scenarios from the flexitarian and vegetarian diets (Walthall et al. 2022), the CSA deliveries at the FH would then meet more than half of the demand for vegetables in a conventional diet and more than a fourth of the demand in a flexitarian or vegetarian diet (Table 3). Regarding potatoes and other tubers, and considering their key importance in regional diets, the self-sufficiency achieved would be 15% in the environmentally friendly scenarios. Very low self-sufficiency (4%) is achieved for fruits. Finally, the current supply of legumes to the FH would meet 41% of the current demand, which is currently extremely low, but because of the high increase in their consumption in the two additional scenarios (to compensate for the reduction in animal proteins), this number decreases dramatically to 4% and 1% for the flexitarian and vegetarian diets, respectively.

The regionalization of diets would reduce the telecoupling effects (Hull and Liu 2018; i.e., the impacts of consumed foods from abroad) of current globalized diets. Shifting toward vegetarian or flexitarian diets would significantly reduce the impacts, such as virtual land use and water, greenhouse gas emissions, biodiversity loss, and deforestation (Laroche et al. 2020, Theurl et al. 2020, Hoang and Kanemoto 2021). Moreover, increasing domestic production of vegetables would have a positive effect as well. Germany is the largest European importer of fresh vegetables in Europe, with 12% of them coming from Spain (WITS Data 2024), very often from arid or semi-arid areas. This means a significant impact not only in terms of water consumption (Mekonnen and Hoekstra 2011) but on the whole social-ecological system (Martínez-Valderrama et al. 2023). An increase in domestic food production would also mitigate land and water grabbing by Germany in Global South countries (Rulli et al. 2013).

As our results show, it would be relatively easy to substitute those imported vegetables with seasonal vegetables from the region and, therefore, mitigate the negative social-ecological impacts derived from food imports. Nevertheless, reducing animal-based products is not the only way to mitigate impacts from a food system. After interviewing the CSAs (Vicente-Vicente et al. 2023) and the participatory observation at the FH, we found a wide diversity of physical conditions of food products. The majority of them were distributed to CSA members, and only a small proportion, the ones that were mechanically damaged or very deteriorated, were used for producing processed products (e.g., juices) or composted. Food surpluses from the CSA were often used in the community dinners. Therefore, both food losses and waste were minimized. Reducing food waste is also of key importance as part of the consumption behavior to reduce the land footprint, which could be up to 458 m² capita⁻¹ yr⁻¹, representing a 24% reduction of the total land footprint (Vicente-Vicente et al. 2021a). Furthermore, the FH could contribute to the reduction of food waste through its food rescuing activity. However, we found that, at the time of the analysis, this activity was far from being fully deployed (Fig. 8).

Another way to reduce social-ecological externalities from the food system is the systemic adoption of agroecology (Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations [FAO] 2018, HLPE 2019, Wezel et al. 2020, Walthall et al. 2024). We found that the CSA farms have already achieved intermediate to high levels in the transformative transition to an agroecology-based system, in which land is farmed taking advantage of natural cycles, saving land for fostering and preserving biodiversity, and increasing the resilience of the agroecosystem. At the same time, there was a reconnection between producers and consumers throughout fostering circular and solidarity economy, culture, and food traditions, and the co-creation and sharing of knowledge (Vicente-Vicente et al. 2023).

Transformative potential analysis and scaling (out, up, deep)

These results come from the participatory research, based on a multi-method and multi-actor approach during the reflexive phase, which generated co-developed social-ecological knowledge (FoodSHIFT 2030 n.d.). The aim of this section is to transform the reflexive into transformative social-ecological knowledge. To do so, we used this reflexive knowledge and combined it with workshops and meetings with the FH leaders in order to apply the TPoF to, ultimately, co-create pathways for scaling the FHs and its activities based on the vision of the FH leaders.

Current transformation level achieved by the prototype activities and the FH as concept (LebensMittelPunkt)

The application of the TPoF shows that the CSA deliveries and community dinners are already contributing to the transformation of the city-region food system. However, this has been done only to a medium level. The CSA deliveries already contribute to fostering transformative learning and the empowering of actors. The transformative social-ecological learning is not achieved at its highest potential. During the participatory observation and PAR in both the FH and CSA farms (Vicente-Vicente et al. 2023), we found that the CSA model system and its connection to the LebensMittelPunkt as an accelerator of the urban-rural and human-nature (re)connection (Blay-Palmer et al. 2013) are not fully used in this prototype activity. Despite the fact that the FH provides a space where CSA members can gather and use for strengthening connections, most of the benefits we found come from their CSA model by itself, where the reconnection between producers and consumers comes through strong social interaction and community-building (Zoll et al. 2021). In such a situation, the risk is that the space might be seen as another food distribution point, one of the core activities in common with all FHs of the LebensMittelPunkt network in Berlin, but also just one of various activities for which the concept of FH is also in consensus (LebensMittelPunkte Berlin 2024). The FH was, thus, at least at the times of our monitoring, a space where CSA members did not spend very much time. However, we did find that the CSA-FH model fosters trust among participants and actors. The CSA is already a highly trustworthy system in Germany, where “informal ways of demonstrating openness and credibility are more trusted than formal, institutionalized signals” (Zoll et al. 2023). Moreover, the LebensMittelPunkt is a nonprofit model, relying mostly on public funding and with no connections to agri-business corporations. This altogether gives an overall atmosphere of trust.

Regarding empowering actors, the CSA-FH model is an agroecology-based AFN (Vicente-Vicente et al. 2023). The model deviates radically from the mainstream channels of the globalized food system and significantly reduces the dependency on conventional market channels within existing power structures by increasing food self-sufficiency levels through an AFN (Table 3). The CSA model provides a space of experimentation for farmers and CSA members, while ensuring a certain degree of economic stability (Opitz et al. 2019, Vicente-Vicente et al. 2023). In this case, farmers very often agree with the members on the cropping plans and practices they apply, fostering experimentation at a very low risk, because the members pay the membership a full year in advance to the farmer (Opitz et al. 2019, Vicente-Vicente et al. 2023). Nevertheless, again, the FH does not meet the full potential of a new type of space for bringing together social actors and empowering them. Consumers linked to the CSAs and farm employees delivering their produce could meet at the FH and experience new communication and learning in a location different from a depot. However, we observed that farm employees were usually very busy, and CSA members did not spend so much time in the FH beyond the tasks related to sorting and delivery of the products.

The community dinners showed a generally similar pattern when scoring the different sub-features. The full potential of this prototype activity to transform learning practices and shifting mindsets toward sustainability was not fully achieved, but just to an intermediate level. Social learning among participants concerns increasing their social-ecological knowledge and, thus, strengthening their connection with nature (Vicente-Vicente et al. 2022). To do so, in this particular case, it was found to be highly important to provide information on the products and recipes that were used for the dinner, highlighting the fact that the produce was mainly from a CSA farm and the implications of that. The degree of participation in community dinners depended on the role of each participant. Whereas the ones taking an active role in cooking were much more involved and engaged in using regional and sustainably-produced food, the ones attending just the dinner were less engaged. Nevertheless, the after-dinner “news you can use” activity gives attendees a strong sense of belonging to the community and contributes to fostering the reassessing of ways of thinking in practice (Seeds of change: tracking the food system transformation 2023). The positive outcomes from the community kitchen are in line with Fridman and Lenters (2013), who found that they can promote food knowledge and skills on healthy eating and well-being, foster community-building while cooking together, and potentially reduce the cost of food.

When assessing the empowerment of the actors involved, we found, as in the CSA deliveries, that these community dinners deviated radically from the global mainstream system. The system is based on a solidarity system: on the one hand, the majority of the products come from a CSA, a solidarity-based model, whereas at the FH, there is no set price for the dinners but relies on the attendees’ economic level and social-ecological awareness to set the price. These solidarity-based processes significantly reduce the dependence on existing power structures, meaning the conventional globalized food system. The creation of a sense of community where different people can share experiences and opinions in a “safe space” within an atmosphere of trust contributed to the creation of a collaborative environment (Pereira et al. 2015) that, to some extent, empowers social actors. However, and unlike in previous sub-features of empowerment, those related to managing optional spaces for social-ecological innovation achieved only intermediate-low scores. This is due to the low proportion of people involved in cooking compared to the total number of attendees, typically between a fourth and a fifth. Fridman and Lenters (2013) highlight that community kitchens go beyond addressing neighborhood food insecurity, food skills, and healthy eating. They found that positive social impacts, such as an engagement in social policy advocacy, community-building, or connecting individuals to one another, could be amplified when they are embedded within other social and community food initiatives. They are usually activities that take place alongside other food-related activities in the neighborhood and, therefore, as these authors conclude, can play a powerful role in bringing people together and being a catalyst of community development initiatives.

Regarding the food rescuing activity, all scores were low. This is because the activity was not found to have a significant impact. Only 27 kg in one year was registered as rescued food, coming from stores in the neighborhood and one CSA farm. Thus, there was a lack of engagement of neighbors in foodsharing activities. A reason for the low performance can be found in the stringent regulations in Berlin, in contrast to other German cities, which pose a challenge to the quantity of rescued food, hindering foodsharing initiatives. We found the role of the FH as concept, LebensMittelPunkt, to be highly relevant for the transformation, being the main cause why activities developed there can generate a transformative impact, whose sub-features scored 3–5. Because it belongs to an AFN based on a solidarity model (CSA model, community dinners, food rescuing), which is radically different from the conventional and globalized food system, the space can be defined as an institution that challenges existing power structures through creating new visions and shared meanings. This is done by linking actors with similar goals and interests, such as agroecological farmers with conscious consumers, food and sustainability activists, as well as other actors with a transformative vision of the food system. Furthermore, the FH acts as a project space of the Berlin LebensMittelPunkte Network (LebensMittelPunkte Berlin 2024), being the first point of contact for existing LebensMittelPunkt initiatives and any projects that want to become one. In this context, the FH establishes linkages with power holders, acting as an intermediary to mobilize local and regional resources (e.g., knowledge, time, finances). As an example, the FH keeps in permanent communication with the Food Policy Council (Ernährungsrat Berlin) and local policymakers (at senate and district level), leads social projects, and participates in research projects (FoodSHIFT 2030 n.d., SWITCH n.d.).

Proposing pathways to scaling the FHs and its activities

As a result of the development of meetings and workshops with the FH leaders, we found three main goals in order to scale the FH: (1) supporting the multitude of local actors of change who want to work or are already working on local solutions for sustainable diets (scaling deep); (2) supporting the local FH initiatives and engaged citizens who want to organize healthy and sustainable food for all (scaling out); and (3) supporting the development of the food strategy to institutionalize the FH in the metropolitan food system governance (scaling up).

a. FH as a space for human-nature reconnection and social-ecological learning to deep-scaling the activities

Social learning in its multiple dimensions (epistemic, social, symbolic, spatial, and temporal; Freeth and Caniglia 2020) is a key aspect in transdisciplinary living labs (Knickel et al. 2023). Thus, living labs become collaborative epistemic living spaces where actors learn how to collaborate as a team, in situ and together (learning as relational), from challenging experiences (learning as experiential; Freeth and Caniglia 2020, Knickel et al. 2023). We found that the living lab might be placed within what Knickel et al. (2023) categorized as “untapped,” where actors are not often in the “learning zone” or the “comfort zone,” but sometimes remain in the “discomfort zone” (Freeth and Caniglia 2020). This fact is visible in the results from the TPoF, where we found that there is still room for improvement in the FH so that it can take advantage of the full potential of the prototype activities and the overall atmosphere of trust that the FH can create so that it engages citizens and other local actors in the neighborhood. This can be achieved by combining two strategies: increasing (1) natural interactions (e.g., meetings, email exchanges, regular conversations); and (2) facilitated exchanges (e.g., workshops, focus groups; Reed et al. 2010, Beers et al. 2016, Knickel et al. 2023).

Although the food rescuing activity is the one prototype activity that, according to our results, is in a very early stage of development, even the other two activities (CSA deliveries and community dinners) could be improved. All three activities would improve if the FH increased the presence and encountering of different actors in the FH and engaged them in activities where multi-actor participation and social-ecological knowledge exchange are fostered. This lack of sufficient actors’ engagement has been already found in living labs (Compagnucci et al. 2021). In the case of food rescuing, this would increase trust, the number of people spending time at the FH, and ultimately the amount of food that is rescued from neighbors and stores. Regarding the CSA deliveries, we found that the presence of farmers or farm employees in the FH or farm visits for those FH actors involved should be fostered, so that there could be some knowledge exchange between farmers, CSA members, and other citizens. Thus, the social-ecological knowledge exchange would lead to an improvement in farmers’ ecological knowledge, farmers–CSA members relationship, and human-nature connection in citizens in the neighborhood. This would also give more robustness to the agroecology-based regional AFN (Vicente-Vicente et al. 2023) and increase food self-sufficiency levels compared to those estimated previously. This would also have a positive impact on the community dinners, engaging more people for the collective cooking. Quaranta et al. (2019), for instance, found that the links between the local territory and its food and farming culture and traditions in a FH can be better understood through art. These artistic activities would foster creativity, cross-fertilization among actors, a willingness to take part in governance processes, and an availability and awareness of tangible and intangible resources (Quaranta et al. 2019). By fostering social learning with different actors in the FH (farmers, citizens, Food Policy Council, consumers, activists), and bringing them from the comfort and discomfort to the learning zone, the ecological component would be organically incorporated, thus, fostering social-ecological learning.

b. Scaling out the FH in a polycentric network of FHs in the city

Baumhaus is one of the first FHs in Berlin. However, more initiatives have been built since the prototype activities started in 2020, and currently a network of 29 FHs are already part of the official LebensMittelPunkt Network (LebensMittelPunkte Berlin 2024). The FH was a key actor in the creation of this network, being the coordinators, mobilizing resources, and connecting actors and other FHs from different neighborhoods in Berlin. The FH also has links with power holders, such as district mayors, the Food Policy Council, and other public officers and policymakers at city district and municipality level. According to a previous study based on the 15-min city (Klebl et al. 2022, 2024), it was estimated that there should be a total of 231 FHs to feed the entire city of Berlin with agroecology-based regional FHs. Considering the results from the monitoring system, scaling out the CSA deliveries to the whole city would imply the city achieving the levels already estimated for the FH, which could be increased by deep-scaling the prototype activities. The result would be a transformative transition to a sustainable city-region food system based on the agroecological principles or, in other words, an agroecology-based territorialized agri-food system (González De Molina and Lopez-Garcia 2021, Sanz-Cañada et al. 2023). Thus, by continuing with current prototype activities in the FH on networking (i.e., acting as intermediaries, mobilizing resources, linking actors, links with power holders) and improving them by, for example, implementing digital platforms to foster engagement of citizens in purchasing CSA products (Nicol and Taherzadeh 2020), the FH network could be replicated and established in more neighborhoods. However, this higher number of FHs in the city would mean a sharp increase in the regional demand for agricultural land, which is currently one of the main challenges in the Berlin-Brandenburg region. Therefore, access to agricultural land for feeding regionally is one of the main barriers to scale out the FH network (Vicente-Vicente et al. 2023). This will also mean a higher need for non-tangible resources, such as knowledge and training and, thus, platforms for fostering knowledge exchange would also be needed (Nicol 2020, Nicol and Taherzadeh 2020).

c. Empowering actors to transform the local food system by supporting the development of food strategies (scale-up)

A combination of the efforts of deep- and out-scaling with empowering actors would lead to fostering the up-scaling of activities. Considering the FH’s goal, this would be materialized into supporting the food strategy of the city and different city districts by feeding them with insights from the prototype activities.

The institutionalization of the FH as concept within Berlin’s food strategy involves various steps and developments, including the agenda setting, collaborative actions, and government support. The initial step involved recognizing the existing challenges faced by small-scale food initiatives in Berlin, such as logistical, economic, and bureaucratic hurdles, and a lack of community engagement. As a response to these challenges, the LebensMittelPunkt concept has been promoted and communicated to the local government by the civic Berlin Food Policy Council since 2018. The government recognized the theoretical potential of a FH and acknowledged it by taking it up in the food strategy in 2019 as one concrete measure to build up productive and vibrant neighborhoods.

After the endorsement of the FH in the food strategy by the Berlin senate, an implementation phase followed which included various forms of collaboration and support. For one, the government provided funding for the implementation and operation of the FH and building up the LebensMittelPunkt Network in Berlin in the context of increasing regional food self-sufficiency (Sanz Sanz et al. 2023). Scientific support was provided by publishing a study on the optimal location of FHs based on the 15-min city concept (Klebl et al. 2022, 2024) and the potential food self-sufficiency of the city-region (Berlin-Brandenburg; Zasada et al. 2019, Walthall et al. 2022, Sanz Sanz et al. 2023).

Overall, institutionalization of FHs involved a multifaceted approach, encompassing policy advocacy, financial support, and collaborative partnerships, to create a conducive environment for small-scale food initiatives in Berlin. By actively engaging stakeholders, including local communities, businesses, policymakers, and researchers, the living lab at the FH allows for a collaborative and empowered approach to the development and implementation of food strategies.

The living lab approach and role of social-ecological knowledge to scaling the food hub

The results from the TPoF suggest that it is indeed the idea of a FH that allows implementation of activities with high transformative potential. However, it is not yet clear what the role of the living lab is in this process. The living lab approach allowed us to bring different perspectives, reflect on processes and outcomes, and decide on how to redesign them in order to improve it in an iterative way (Bergvall-Kareborn and Stahlbrost 2009, Hossain et al. 2019, Rădulescu et al. 2022).

Despite the circularity and bi-directionality that are part of the iterative process in living labs, we found a sequence in which scaling is developed. The main efforts of the FH as a living lab were focused on improving three selected prototype activities (CSA deliveries, community dinners, food rescuing) and the idea of the FH as a space for human-nature reconnection and social-ecological learning that could be out-scaled and, therefore, become an accelerator of the city-region food system transformation. The living lab was thus, in the beginning, a user-driven one (Compagnucci et al. 2021), generating social-ecological knowledge in order to address the material human-nature disconnection (Beery et al. 2023). With the participatory research and the application of the TPoF this social-ecological knowledge also addresses the individual emotional, cognitive, and experiential disconnection with nature from the three activities (Beery et al. 2023). Over time, the FH evolved toward an enabler-driven living lab (Compagnucci et al. 2021), incorporating collective factors of human-nature disconnection (e.g., socio-cultural, institutional, political; Beery et al. 2023) with the aim of scaling it out to other neighborhoods throughout the city as a network of FHs (Klebl et al. 2022, 2024, LebensMittelPunkte Berlin 2024), and scaling it up in the form of food strategies at the district and city scales (Fig. 10).

Accordingly, the living lab not only empowers local actors to support the development of food strategies, but also establishes a model for scalable and replicable solutions. As a hub for experimentation, learning, and collaboration, it stands as a testament to the transformative power of collective action in shaping resilient, sustainable, and inclusive food systems. Through its multifaceted approach, the living lab has become a catalyst for positive change, propelling communities toward a future where food system sustainability and resilience go hand in hand.

Limitations of the methodology and caveats for future work in living labs

The study is, to the best of our knowledge, the first social-ecological monitoring of a FH in the form of a living lab continuously and during a relatively long period. Some previous studies have pointed out enablers and barriers for living lab effectiveness (Berberi et al. 2023) and even how different studies frame measuring their impacts (Bronson et al. 2021). Nelson and Landman (2020), for instance, point out the need for evaluating FHs and engaging actors in the process. We found that a living lab applying the principles of citizen science and using participatory methods might be a suitable combination to overcome this. However, because of the transdisciplinary nature of the study, we found most of the challenges that have already been found by Bergmann et al. (2021) in real-world labs. We also found some specific challenges in our research that could be useful for similar studies in the future:

• The monitoring of prototype activities was an intensive, resource-consuming process, leading to a high permanent workload for researchers. This shows the two sides when aiming at collecting reliable data in a living lab: the difficult equilibrium between data as enabler and not a barrier for the living lab effectiveness (Berberi et al. 2023).
• The citizen-science methodology was generally very successful. However, we found that the process of trust building, which also requires time, was of key importance before any active involvement of the researchers took place. We wanted to avoid citizen-scientists becoming just “data collectors” (i.e., contributory citizen-science; Senabre Hidalgo et al. 2021), but instead to adopt a co-design and participatory approach in order to foster transformative change (Busse et al. 2023).
• When doing transdisciplinary science, we found it was very important to build a framework and methodology specifically targeted to meet the goals of the actors. These goals are not mere research questions but real social-ecological problems that the actors want to solve. We found it was also very important to build a framework and methodology able to tackle the social and ecological dimensions and their interlinkages in a living lab (Beaudoin et al. 2022). However, although we included a quantitative biophysical KPI we did not do it for the socio-cultural dimension. The results of this study might serve to identify potential socio-cultural aspects that can be precursors or alternative to KPIs, such as narrative creation and storytelling, as well as the degree of engagement of the different actors.
• The work in a living lab is not linear but iterative. Even though we show some of the outcomes in this study, we are aware that this is a co-learning process where outcomes serve as an input for the living lab in order to improve the activities. Indeed, the iterative nature of processes in living labs was found by Berberi et al. (2023) to be one of the main enablers of living labs’ effectiveness.
• Similarly, real-world framework conditions are dynamic. We experienced how the out-phasing crisis period of COVID-19 brought with it massive but temporary challenges, which made the period a particular case for the living lab scope, relevance, and transformative action. In our study, we tried to adapt to those special circumstances. For instance, we took advantage of strict in-person regulations during 2020 to building trust and co-designing the methodology with the FH leaders. We started the monitoring of the KPI as soon as the most strict lockdown measures were removed, in spring 2021. Other times, we used the time between lockdowns to develop assessments, such as the participatory research and the monitoring of the community dinners. This highly changing environment required high flexibility and adaptability among researchers to allocate their efforts and adapt their own research.
• There are different timings between science and real-life processes. Whereas science needs more time to process and assess data, real-life interventions often require quick analyses and responses to challenging and changing circumstances. In fact, some interventions proposed here to improve the transformative potential of the FH have been implemented after our assessment or are already planned to be implemented.
• Finally, we think it is important to highlight that in our study, the people involved in the FH were already engaged and had a transformative view of the global industrialized food system. Otherwise, the citizen science might need additional approaches and methodologies, such as a convivial food system design based on critical PAR (Kemmis 2008) and performativity theory (Haseman 2006) to agitate citizens for change (Samuels-Ballantyne and Vodeb 2023).

CONCLUSIONS

Living labs have been proposed as suitable instruments to accelerate societal transformations. This four-year study shows a transdisciplinary research in a prototype of a FH as a living lab. Following the living lab approach, the process has been multi-actor, addressing FH leaders, food citizens, farmers, and policymakers of the Berlin-Brandenburg city-region. The methodology has been co-designed and the set of methods (i.e., multi-method approach) co-applied. Overall, we found that the living lab approach is a suitable one for the creation of transformative social-ecological knowledge, where different human-nature disconnection factors are addressed. In the beginning, monitoring was focused on the material factor, later incorporating other individual factors (cognitive, experiential, and emotional) to deep-scaling the FH, whereas the collective ones (socio-cultural, political, and institutional) are addressed in the scaling out and up of the FH. Nevertheless, we also show the limitations and caveats to consider when working under the living lab approach, which we believe could be of high usefulness for current and future studies in living labs.

After one year of monitoring three prototype activities (CSA deliveries, community dinners, and food rescuing), we found that the FH is already contributing to accelerating the food system transformation in the Brandenburg-Berlin city-region food system. This is due to the transformative vision of the FH as concept, LebensMittelPunkt, being a space that fosters experimentation, the creation of new visions and shared meanings that challenge existing power structures of the conventional and globalized food system. Nevertheless, the FH would take full advantage of its potential, which has not yet been achieved, by improving the role of the FH as a space for human-nature reconnection (i.e., deep-scaling). Furthermore, the FH is able to mobilize resources and build up networks and links with actors with similar goals and interests in order to foster the replication of the FH to the entire city (i.e., out-scaling). In fact, the FH was able to initiate a FH network in the city of Berlin, which to date accounts for 29 FHs.

The reflexive phase resulted in the creation of relevant social-ecological knowledge. The monitoring of the deliveries from the CSAs to the FH shed light on what (more than 150 crops and foods) and how much (10 tons) can be produced through a highly diversified agricultural system in the region for one year. We found that this system might be contributing to a significant increase in the food self-sufficiency of the CSA members, especially for vegetables (more than 50% of the current demand), as well as providing a wide range of food products that are adapted to the local pedoclimatic conditions. These results, combined with the ones from the buffets served at community dinners, show that there are specific relevant products, such as legumes, currently accounting for very low production levels, whose increase in the production would affect positively the sustainability and healthiness of the dietary patterns. Creating recipes based on regional, seasonal, and sustainably-produced products is of crucial importance to accelerate the transition to an agroecology-based territorialized agri-food system. In this frame, we believe our season calendar could play a relevant role. The outcomes from the living lab, therefore, contribute to creating transformative social-ecological knowledge to improve the FH’s activities, which is taken up by other FHs (i.e., out-scaling) and used to support the creation of the local food strategies (i.e., up-scaling).

Finally, even though this is a bottom-up initiative, we think that a collaborative and supportive institutional atmosphere is needed in order to scale up and out these agroecology-based regional FHs in both urban and rural contexts. As we showed, both individual and collective social-ecological knowledge creation and sharing are crucial to scale FHs in the city-region. We encourage policymakers and other actors of the Berlin-Brandenburg food system to consider the results of this study when developing policies and actions to increase the regionalization and sustainability of the territory. Furthermore, we are aware that access to tangible resources, such as agricultural land in the countryside and spaces in the city, for the FHs is also crucial to replicate the LebensMittelPunkt initiative.

__________

^[1] This number includes different crop varieties, production systems (e.g., in greenhouse and outdoor), and processed products.
^[2] Spices, salt, oil, and vinegar were not considered.
^[3] This number is relatively low because the community dinners took place during the COVID-19 restrictions. This number was > 50 previously.

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