Robust and accurate food footprint data is needed to inform the sustainable food system transition. Yet the science underlying food footprint life cycle assessment (LCA) databases remains too incomplete, coarse, and dated for practical use. GreenGrocer invests in fundamental improvements in key food LCA platforms include Trase.earth, HESTIA, FABIO, Eora, EXIOBASE, and the CoolFarm tool. The GREENGROCER investment package advances sustainable food footprinting tools by 1. filling in persistent blindspots in food footprint knowledge, 2. making foundation-strengthening investments in key open-source food data platforms, towards full compliance with the EU’s Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) standards, and 3. convening a multi-stakeholder dialogue between food system researchers, industry, and regulators aimed at prioritising pain points and supporting regulation efficacy.

Context

GreenGrocer is a Research and Innovation project funded under the Horizon Europe programme of the European Commission. The project was funded under the call on Environmental impacts of food systems in cluster 6: "Food, Bioeconomy, Natural Resources, Agriculture and Environment".

GreenGrocer is coordinated by NILU and has 22 partners in 11 European countries. The project runs from September 2025 to August 2029.

Aims

The project has three main aims:

1. Addressing persistent blindspots in food footprint knowledge, by widening and deepening coverage of:
   • EU food system impacts on eutrophication, deforestation, and climate via global supply chain traceability
   • Quantifying underexplored impacts of aquatic food, such as overfishing, seafloor disturbance, and bycatch
   • Assessing the impact mitigation potential of food distribution, cold food chains, and novel foods
   • Spatially explicit agricultural production data for 50 crops across 185 countries.
2. Making foundation-strengthening investments in key open-source food data platforms, by accelerating:
   • Compliance of major food footprint databases with the EU’s Product Environmental Footprint standards
   • FAIR-ness of current mainstream and emerging tools to broker access to industry and consumers
   • Data standardisation and interoperability to facilitate multi-model food footprinting.
3. Co-creating knowledge between science and industry, accelerating uptake, and trialling solutions, by:
   • Deploying HESTIA’s farm sustainability toolkit, co-created with farmers, to ~20,000 farms in Europe
   • Updating the CoolFarm Tool, reaching leading food-beverage firms: 159 orgs, >10,000 users, 17 languages
   • Broad consumer surveys (n=1,000 per EU country) to identify opportunities for novel foods and diet shifts.
   • Developing sector-specific regulatory standards for EFRAG disclosure in the food and beverages sector.
   • Develop and promote data sharing and transparency via SeaBOS, guiding nine of the largest seafood producers

Objectives

The project is structured around six specific objectives (SOs):

SO-1 Strengthen the incomplete foundations of food footprint data by filling key blindspots

Responding to the request to increase knowledge of the environmental and climate impacts stemming from the food systems, we:

• Fill food footprint blind spots of eutrophication, deforestation, marine foods, and antibiotic use.
• Increase temporal, regional, subnational and product coverage and specificity of food impact databases.
• Standardise production stressor accounts for multi-model application: Material Flow Analyses (MFAs)/ Life Cycle Assessments (LCAs)/Multi-regional Input-output models (MRIOs) and derive a Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) compliant database.
• Advance footprinting tools for use in industry and regulation monitoring and goal-setting.

SO-2 Locate and measure socio-economic trade-offs and synergies of a sustainable EU food transition

Responding to the request to identify trade-offs and synergies between environmental considerations and social and economic considerations which are also a major factor along the food supply chain, we:

• Evaluate economic trade-offs of sustainable farming in farm-level field trials and tools (~1,000 EU farms).
• Conduct deep dives to study and scale innovative food solutions (e.g.cellular agriculture, seaweed).
• Assess nutrition of consumer sub-groups in 242 NUTS-2 regions, currently and for future food scenarios.
• Conduct workshops and farm trials to assess industry readiness for food production innovations

SO-3 Perform foundation-strengthening improvements in existing mainstream public data tools.

Responding to the request to increase the accessibility of relevant high quality life cycle inventory data according to FAIR principles and the EU’s open science policy by setting up actions to develop, review and make available existing databases, we:

• Collate and assess technological readiness, FAIRness and PEF compliance key food-impact datasets.
• Set recommendations for (and implemented selected) improvements via data-provider engagement.
• Increase dissemination and uptake of food impact knowledge via a specialist AI agent.

SO-4 Identify and evaluate innovations that deliver sustainable EU food production, consumption and trade.

Responding to the request to identify and map opportunities and innovative solutions, including existing good practices that address the identified impacts and promote the uptake of sustainable food production (including harvesting) and/ or food supply practices, including consumption practices, with minimum impact, we:

• Map food innovations: seaweed, insects, cellular agriculture, cold chains, and restaurant waste reduction.
• Identify barriers to uptake of food innovations within the EU via industry workshops and case studies.
• Assess the scalability and impacts of innovations in EU-wide food system transition scenarios.

SO-5 Advance knowledge of the environmental impacts of innovative food supply and transport solutions

Responding to the request to create robust evidence-based understanding of the impacts of food systems and identify and map opportunities and innovative solutions, we:

• Increase traceability of food-linked supply chain impacts to better target interventions/solutions.
• Evaluate trade methods and routes of all food traded from and to the EU and environmental sustainability.
• Demonstrate innovative solutions to freeze products to allow for low-carbon cold chains by land and sea.

SO-6 Accelerate uptake of new scientific knowledge and tools by key food system actors

Responding to the request to support to actors across the food systems through new available knowledge, shared existing data on environmental and climate impacts of food systems and identification of innovative solution we:

• Increase dissemination and uptake of data via an specialist AI agent (also meeting SO-3).
• Deploy new food impact data to ~20,000 EU farms to guide sustainability appraisal of farm techniques.
• Improve the scientific basis of the CoolFarm Tool — a platform used by 10,000+ farmers / 150+ companies
• Identify key barriers to use of existing food footprinting tools across the EU’s food and beverage sector

Approaches

Project Structure

1. Data Foundations (Lead: ETH Zurich)
2. Exploiting the data (Lead: University of York)
3. Actor-Level Footprinting (Lead: Leiden CML)
4. Innovation in Sustainable Food Production (Lead: NILU AB)
5. Balancing the Interests (Lead: GlobeScan)
6. Coordination, Dissemination, and Outreach (Lead: NILU)