Cities, universities and organisations gathered in Birmingham to exchange learning on urban food systems, as the city continues its work as one of three Bauhaus Bites Trailblazers.
Birmingham hosts the Bauhaus Bites Consortium Meeting
Birmingham welcomed European partners for the Bauhaus Bites Consortium Meeting, held from 15–17 June 2026 as part of the Horizon Europe-funded project (2024–2027). The three-day visit brought together cities, universities, and organisations working collaboratively to transform urban food systems and create healthier, more inclusive and sustainable communities.
As one of three Trailblazer cities, alongside Fundão and Zagreb, Birmingham is leading the development of community-led approaches to improving local food environments. The consortium meeting provided an opportunity to share progress, exchange learning, and strengthen partnerships across the network, reinforcing the shared ambition to embed the New European Bauhaus principles of sustainability, inclusion, and beauty into food systems.
The Birmingham consortium visit
The programme combined collaborative workshops with a series of onsite visits, offering partners a practical insight into how Birmingham is delivering place-based food initiatives. These visits showcased a range of local organisations supporting food growing, redistribution, and community wellbeing, demonstrating how food can act as a catalyst for social connection and environmental sustainability.
Alongside the site visits, partners took part in workshops designed to build on the project’s co-creative approach. These sessions focused on sharing progress, exploring challenges, and identifying opportunities to strengthen delivery across all participating cities.
The opening session set the tone for the visit, bringing together civic leadership, public health expertise, and international partners. The sequence of contributions highlighted Birmingham’s local context and emphasised the importance of partnership working in addressing food and health inequalities, before situating this within the wider European project.
Embedding New European Bauhaus principles
The Bauhaus Bites project is grounded in the New European Bauhaus vision, which connects sustainability, inclusion, and design to improve everyday life. In Birmingham, this is being translated into locally rooted actions, particularly across East Birmingham, where diverse communities and food assets play a key role in shaping healthier environments.
Through initiatives such as strengthening community food spaces, growing projects, and food system mapping, Birmingham is demonstrating how co-created, place-based approaches can strengthen resilience, celebrate cultural diversity, and support long-term environmental sustainability.
A shared European journey
The consortium meeting in Birmingham marked an important milestone in the Bauhaus Bites journey, reinforcing the value of collaboration across cities. By bringing partners together to exchange ideas and experience local projects first-hand, the visit helped deepen mutual learning and accelerate progress across the programme.
Looking ahead, the learning generated through Bauhaus Bites will contribute to a wider Playbook, capturing methods, tools, and examples that can be adapted and replicated across Europe. Through continued collaboration, Birmingham and its partners are working towards a shared vision of food systems that are not only sustainable and healthy, but also inclusive and rooted in the communities they serve.
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