Citizen Participation Forum

The Citizens Participation Forum (CPF) provides EIT-Food with key insights from consumers. It helps us understand their needs, wants, perceptions, concerns and intentions around food products and the food system. This work helps us gain a deeper understanding of consumer attitudes towards the food system, their willingness, or barriers to accept new foods and innovations and how consumers relate to current trends in the sector.

EIT Food puts the consumer at the centre of its activities and mobilises consumers as change agents in the food chain transformation process. The CPF is an online community with around 200 participants from 13 countries, selected on a basis of a medium-to-high level of interest in the food chain. Members of the community take part in open discussions, photo assignments, questionnaires, short polls and focus group sessions around different topics.

The participants in the Citizen Participation Forum are front runners when it comes to food. They are particularly interested in food and are open to trying new foods. They are generally well-informed about their food and think about aspects of health and sustainability when making food choices. Understanding what this segment of consumers feels and needs is critical for gaining traction when it comes to food innovation, as they can have a strong influence on the success or failure of a product introduction.

The results of the engagement with this community are reports of different depth on a variety of topics such as trust in the food chain, or on the consumer demand for algae-based products.

EIT Food has implemented the Citizen Participation Forum since 2018.

Check out our closely related projects

• EIT Food TrustTracker®
• Increasing consumer trust and support for the food supply chain and for food companies