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Belgium's Food System

Belgium is known for their delicious chocolates, waffles, and beer, but there is much more to the country than just those 3 things.

With a population of over 11.4 million, only a small percentage of the population engage in agriculture. There are 35,000 farms in Belgium and 23,000 of those are in Flanders. The average size of these farms are 27 hectares.

Farmers who engage with crop farming are responsible for growing major crops within the country such as sugar beets, chicory, flax, cereal grains, and potatoes, whereas livestock farmers are responsible for over 45 million farm animals! Belgium’s livestock is made up from around 1.3 million cattle, 5.7 million pigs and more than 42 million poultry.

Future plans for Belgium's food system include:

1) Develop new farming projects in city areas with an objective of producing 30% of fruit and vegetables locally.

2) Reduce food waste by 30%.

One of EIT Food's main tasks is to bring innovation, especially around food production and agriculture, to the market more quickly with the help of start-ups and thus to make the food system healthier and more sustainable together with SMEs.


National Project: Pot Up - Social and Circular Product Innovation in a Jar

project
The Pot Up project combines circular product innovation with social impact.

Belgium Produces More Than 172,000 Tons of Chocolate Annually!

On the blog

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What if we could make everyday foods healthier without changing how they taste, how much they cost, or how easily we can buy them?
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Meet FORMeat, an EIT Food startup from Germany is a cultivated meat start-up doing things differently, specifically addressing the challenge of cost and texture, a win-win situation for scaling it. Read more in the below blog:

Discover the EIT Food partners in this region

A total of 27 items found.

Innovation projects

View all projects
project
Discover the 15 innovative startups driving change and sustainability in the agricultural and food industries.
project
A European initiative co-funded by Erasmus+, designed to drive transformation in the agrifood manufacturing sector.

Upcoming events

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EIT Food Next Bite 2025

October 15, 2025
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EIT Alumni CONNECT 2025

October 17, 2025