ZoBio

Context

Healthy, nutritious, and fresh meals for people who need care are crucial to their recovery and healing, yet this has long been overlooked as an important part of the process. Despite growing demand for organic food in society, local organic products remain largely absent from public catering and healthcare kitchens in Flanders, depriving patients and residents of access to food choices aligning with their health, environmental, and ethical values.

ZoBio addresses this gap by demonstrating that healthcare institutions and local organic farmers can build meaningful and sustainable partnerships. Products directly from a farm are not anonymous – they come with a story, a face, a field, the knowledge of how the products were grown, and the difficulties the farmer has faced. Kitchen staff are educated on organic production, directly in the field, with the farmer. It also fosters a stronger connection with seasonal food systems, inspiring staff to incorporate a broader range of vegetables into their menus. In the long run, this creates a more positive relationship with, and knowledge of, organic agriculture.

For organic farmers, the project creates opportunities to diversify their sales and strengthen their economic resilience. It provides recognition for their role as pioneers in producing healthy food while protecting natural resources and biodiversity. Supplying food to healthcare facilities gives their work an additional social value.

ZoBio contributes to healthier meals, more variation on the plate, stronger local economies, increased awareness of sustainable agriculture, and a food system that serves both people and the environment better.

Objectives

The project aimed to have five healthcare facilities start a collaboration with a local organic farmer. To do so, five open networking events were planned to share knowledge and experiences and to inspire others.

Another priority was to create a mind-shift in procurement, making it supply- rather than demand-driven, putting the emphasis on local organic products and fair income for farmers, and giving kitchen staff more knowledge of organic agriculture.

The wide variety of other goals included more variety on the plate via increased local, seasonal organic products in healthcare catering, and a diversification in sales for farmers.

Activities

At least two meetings (field visits and kitchen visits) were held for each collaboration at the start of each one.

More general meetings, learning networks, and networking events were held and participated in, beginning with attendance at the kick-off event of the Flemish Rural Network in March 2024 and finishing with a closing event in November 2025.

There were significant communication efforts throughout the project. The team chose to capture and showcase successful collaborations between organic farmers and healthcare facilities through professional video production, with the aim of sharing experiences and inspiring wider adoption. Six videos were produced in total.

The project collaborated with the Flemish Rural Network on the production of a video and accompanying article. It includes English subtitles to broaden accessibility and support transferability across regions and countries. ZoBio also developed a brochure about the project to communicate its objectives, activities, and impact to a wider audience. The Flemish Rural Network supported its dissemination by promoting it through its newsletter and by featuring it in the project database, helping to increase its visibility among relevant stakeholders.

In terms of general communications activities, the project issued three press releases, 10 newsletters, 27 social media posts, eight website articles, five articles in the (healthcare or farming) trade press, and 15 in the general press.

Generational Renewal

Several of the farmers involved in the project were under 40 during the project, and the collaboration will have an impact on the further development of their farms.

Main Results

Five sustainable new collaborations have started thanks to the project. Collaborations range from one to five tonnes of vegetables per year. As the project mainly worked with small farms, these additional sales represent real added value for the farmers. There is potential to grow to 30 tonnes per year per collaboration, as is proven by the original collaboration.

Two work integration and social enterprises were involved in the project, generating extra work and/or new business for these organisations.

For farmers, the direct link to a kitchen creates a sustainable economic relationship and ensures a fair income. Crop planning together with the kitchen ensures more sales and less waste, as the kitchen uses crops that are usually considered too small or too big, and also seasonal overproduction.

For the kitchen, the direct link with the farmer gives the advantage of a guaranteed supply and timely menu adaptation to crop harvests.

For work integration and social enterprises, washing and cutting vegetables creates extra volume and work for the organisation, and, by creating extra tasks, more people who have difficulty fitting into the labour market can be brought in via work integration and social enterprises.

Meanwhile, for the healthcare facilities, the fresh organic products add to the quality of the meals, so that they can add food quality as a part of their healthcare vision. Their elderly patients value the taste of the products and eat more, thus needing fewer supplements.

Key lessons

It was crucial for the project managers to attend external networking events prior to the outset of the initiative, both to obtain the necessary information from a wide range of perspectives and to make new connections.

The learning network events hosted by the project were open to all, and a mailing list was created with around 200 people interested in updates on this project. It soon became clear that bringing different parties together, both in terms of farmers on the one hand and healthcare institutions on the other, and also in terms of exchanges between the various collaborations once they had been established, helped everyone involved to push themselves further and to think outside the box. Comparison between the various collaborations was invaluable.