FOODCoST, a four-year, Horizon Europe-funded project sought to support the transition towards sustainable food systems by exploring how to calculate and internalize externalities in climate, biodiversity, environmental, social and health along the food value chain. Over the course of the project, partners delivered research and tools aimed at enabling the uptake of TCA by policymakers and businesses. As FOODCoST drew to a close last month, the TCA Accelerator interviewed project leaders to share insights into the project, their successes, key lessons, and hopes for their future work on TCA. We spoke to Professor Matteo Vittuari (University of Bologna), Valeria Musso (PhD Candidate at the University of Bologna), Michiel van Galen (Senior Researcher and Project Manager, Wageningen University).
Can you share an overview of the FOODCoST project and tell us about your core objectives?
The project started in 2022 and finished at the end of May 2026. We worked with 24 partners on methods, tools, policies and business models to support the uptake of TCA and internalisation of externalities in the food system in general. Specifically, the objectives were to create and support harmonized methodologies and a country-level database of marginal external costs (EU-Global database) and a TCA Guide, and to define and assess policies and business models and strategies that can internalize externalities. Under that same objective, a policy modelling framework on the basis of existing models MAGNET and CAPRI has been created that integrates external costs. A final objective was to assess the impact of internalising externalities and outline a FOODCoST Roadmap.
Can you tell us about your stakeholder platform and why a multi-actor approach was important for the project?
One of FOODCOST’s biggest strengths was its stakeholder platform and multi-actor approach, managed within an assigned Work Package. From the start, we knew that discussing True Cost Accounting and the internalisation of food system externalities could not remain only an academic debate. In the impact assessment pillar of the project, we engaged around 150 stakeholders in online and in-person “Mobilization and Mutual Learning” workshops across Europe, creating a strong community of practice around TCA.
The foresight activities were especially valuable, bringing together producers, retailers, policymakers, NGOs, consumer organisations and researchers to co-create future scenarios and discuss the real implications of internalisation strategies. Overall, the platform became a space for collaboration, exchange and long-term dialogue between science, policy and society.
Harmonization of methods is often discussed in the TCA community. How did you approach harmonization, and what did this work reveal?
We have made considerable effort to assess existing TCA methods. It shows that there is significant variation in valuation approaches, system boundaries and impact coverage, treatment of uncertainty and discounting, and also data sources, and levels of transparency. In FOODCoST, the work on the EU-Global Database (SPIQ-FS) by the University of Oxford has enhanced the country-level assessment of food systems, especially in the valuation of the health impacts of diets. Despite overlap and partial agreement on pathways and valuation methods, the field is still very much in development. It seems that in the short run, full harmonisation is not attainable, but agreement on a set of basic principles and standardisation within use cases is.
Can you share some key project highlights and successes?
A major achievement of FOODCoST was the development of the EU-Global database and its integration into policy modelling frameworks, allowing researchers and policymakers to better assess the environmental, social and economic externalities linked to food systems and explore different internalisation pathways. Another key highlight was the work on business models and strategies for the internalisation of externalities, which helped move the TCA discussion closer to real business practices and implementation challenges. The project also identified important barriers and enabling conditions related to governance, market dynamics and social acceptance.
In parallel, we co-created future scenarios with stakeholders and developed the FOODCoST Visualizer tool, translating complex modelling results of the impact assessment into an accessible interactive online platform, now available on the website, for policymakers, businesses and researchers. Finally, case studies such as the PENNY “True Cost” campaign in Germany helped bring TCA into everyday consumer experience, generating valuable insights into consumer perceptions and transparent food pricing.
Now FOODCoST has wrapped up, what are the plans for the future of this work – how will the outputs be utilized going forward?
The FOODCoST consortium partners are determined to work further on True Cost Accounting and the internalisation of externalities. As for Wageningen Research, we intend to take the findings from the project to work on a national database of product level true costs of food. Future work will also be targeted at enhancing social impacts valuation and better integrating biodiversity, soil quality, ecosystem services, and toxicity in TCA. Much is dependent on financing of course.
At the University of Bologna, we plan to apply TCA in the monetization of impacts, with a focus on the social dimensions of diets, (including the Mediterranean diet), trying to tailor the approach to provide a more detailed perspective on our region.
The engagement with the broader TCA community has increased a lot over the course of the project, and we will be following and contributing to the mainstreaming of TCA in the years to come.
