Diet for a Green Planet
Feeding people well and feeding the planet well are usually treated as separate problems, as if a good meal and a sustainable one pull in different directions. Södertälje's municipal meal service tested that assumption directly: could a kitchen serving over 20,000 meals a day go significantly more organic, without a bigger budget or worse food? Diet for a Green Planet is the answer that came out of asking that question properly: five practical criteria, developed with Södertälje's own Kostenheten (meal service), now used by kitchens and food services well beyond where it started.
Södertälje proved the point. Between 2010 and 2013, working with the municipality's meal service, the organic share of its more than 20,000 daily meals rose past 60% without increasing their budget, and without the food loosing in quality. If anything, it got better: in 2016, Södertälje was named Sweden's best school-meal municipality by White Guide Junior. That result is Diet for a Green Planet's real foundation, not a theory about how food should work, but a demonstration of how it actually can.
Seven countries, one region, one goal: a food system around the Baltic Sea that runs on local, renewable resources.
The concept itself rests on five practical criteria: food that's genuinely good and well-prepared, not just compliant with nutrition guidelines; organic, and where possible from circular farms that keep animals and land in balance; less meat and dairy, more vegetables, legumes and whole grains; local and in season wherever possible; and waste minimised at every stage, from kitchen to plate. None of the five demands perfection. Together, they give a kitchen or a household a practical direction to work in, one choice at a time.
What started in one municipality's kitchens has since travelled well beyond it. Diet for a Green Planet is now used in Finland, Lithuania, Poland, Spain and India. Different food cultures, the same five criteria, adapted to what's actually available locally in each place.