An aliment travels in average 1500km before arriving in the plate of the European citizen. Facing this fact, a global and deep movement raise around food and agriculture to foster sustainable production and consumption of goods of quality. Nonetheless, - those initiatives are numerous but remain often isolated - the sector represent a strong potential growth, but lacks structuration - it can generate many jobs, e.a. low qualified jobs, which are sutainable (because linked to a territory)and worthwhile but wich strongly demands adapted trainings; - The sectors suffers from a loss in cooking habits from the population, deprived in terms of cooking techniques; - the idea of sustainable alimentation, in the organic and local meaning of the terms, seems far away from the concerns of the precarious and fragile populations, whereas it’s a matter of health and economy; - the short-circuits have entered EU political agenda, through DG for “Agriculture and Rural Development” and “Health and Food Safety”. The project will answer those concerns developing and making known and recognize a certification as “eco-caterer”. It will hence answer matters of economy, needs of competences for labour market, pedagogical approaches for training operators, social by addressing the precarious people, and environment by axing all its action on a sustainable and quality alimentation, using products of organic and short circuits origin. The project wishes to seize the ECVET tools and principles to offer the complement of competences allowing to make vocational training in catering pass to the sustainable, in organic and short circuit meaning of the term. A specific focus will be drawn on fragile and precarious target groups, in particular the underqualified or the long terms unemployed persons. The targeted trainings use training method of learning in real or reconstructed labour situation. It gathers 4 federations and 10 training operators. I will target directly or indirectly hundreds of trainees. The whole of ECVET recommended tools will be developed: a professional standard and a training standard will allow training operators to add the sustainable elements to their cursus. Assessment tools will be designed. At last we’ll set the necessary elements for a quality process of the eco-catering trainings, in line with the 15 EQAVET prescripts. We’ll also ascertain a cerification delivered to trainees, and we’ll work toward the recognition of this certification beyond the project’s partners. Our method is participatory, involving the stakeholders of several levels, in order to ascertain both quality of the products and their dissemination. Moreover, we’ll decline the ECVET standards tools in the pedagogic and cooking local contexts. The challenge is to design common standards, but to allow them to be localised in terms of cultural of alimentation contexts. Finally, the project develops a strong axe of work toward dissemination: - the pedagogical tools and cooking resources will be available on an online portal, in order to guarantee a free, patent-free, dissemination. It will be hence possible to address a broader audience with efficacy; - Dissemination events will be organized, in order to reach the different stakeholders in a tailored fashion; - in each country, a fair for sustainable cooking will allow the broader audience to discover the project’s outputs around concrete cook production from the trainees. - Several tools and newsletters will be also regularly published. We wish hence allow training operators to fully make the step toward sustainable, and the VET sector to have at its own disposal the necessary tools of structuration, as well as the concrete pedagogical resources. The learning target groups will be better ready for labour market and in their daily lives facing the sustainable and quality food. The political leader and pilots institutions for VET will beneficiate of experimentations on the implementation for sustainable sector of the most advanced ECVET tools (specifically the quality process). This will also encompass the vulnerable target groups. The economic stakeholder will benefit in terms of answer to their needs of qualified workers and of transparency of trainings. At last, the broader audience will benefit of resources allowing the more easily feed and cook in a sustainable manner.
1. Context A food travels an average of 1500 km before reaching the plate of the European consumer. Faced with this observation and the induced consequences, a fundamental movement around food is now developing to advocate a consumption of healthy products and some production practices respectful of humans and their environment. However: - the initiatives are numerous, but not systemic; - traditional culinary habits and techniques are losing ground; - the food sector has strong growth potential, but lacks structuring; - organic and local food is both a health and economic issue, but it remains insufficiently accessible to precarious populations; - the sector generates jobs that are directly linked to a territory (therefore sustainable) and low-skilled (therefore rewarding), but implies a sustained need for awareness and training; - the short-circuit approach has entered the European political agenda, particularly at the level of the DGs "Agriculture and Rural Development" and "Health and Consumers". 2. Objectives The project partners are positioning themselves against these findings by setting up an "eco-caterer" training program accessible to a vulnerable public and valuing specific know-how and professional skills. It concerns areas such as: - economy, in terms of skills needs for the labor market; - education, for adult training operators; - society, by addressing a precarious public; - environment, focusing its actions on the particular dimension of a sustainable food (healthy, organic, local and seasonal), but also from the more global angle of a catering kitchen in transition with regard to its energy aspects, waste management, supplier and customer relations, etc. Then the project has taken the principles and tools ECVET to define the complement of skills to convert the "classic" professional catering courses. It should be noted that targeted training uses work-based learning methods. The ultimate goal of this project is to create a new business profile linked to adapted learning units and to carry out a real-life test in order to validate the results. 3. Number and profile of participating organizations The project brings together 4 federations and 10 training operators directly and indirectly involving several hundred trainees and impacting a large target audience. 4. Description of the main activities implemented A new training program was developed starting from concrete local situations in 5 different countries, thus determining a common "transcultured" base, so transferable to various pedagogical and culinary contexts. The project partners have also achieved maximum dissemination through the organization of a series of events targeting a variety of audiences (17 initiatives in two years) and through the use of Erasmus + dissemination platforms as well as through their own tools, including an open access website, to disseminate productions and raise awareness of the theme and its context. 5. Results and impacts achieved The project focused on the role of eco-kitchen assistant: the function is connected to all the activities in & around a kitchen, thus the bases of the work are in place to extend in a next step the reflections carried out around this concrete profile to the set of functions of a restaurant, with some certification as perspective. The innovation consists in the fact that three new standards have been developed and validated for a relevant sector in which work-based training takes place, namely: a business profile, a training module with tools and an evaluation system, transposable according to the local realities. In order to be directly and immediately integrated into a training cycle, a syllabus contextualizes the process, groups the tools and completes the results using teaching resources. Learners, which include a vulnerable public, are now better equipped through their training related to sustainable food. Economic actors gain in terms of high-level professional qualifications and transparency in the training cycle. 6. Long-term benefits The centers involved in the project also derive indirect benefits over the long term, since, on the one hand, their trainers were able to exchange good practices, both pedagogical and professional, and on the other their "HoReCa" training programs welcomes new ideas… and new equipments. This is certainly a source of inspiration for the actors interested in starting this dynamic. Thanks to the new resources, access to the labor market is also facilitated for a wider range of jobseekers, on a long-term basis since it is linked to some needs that cannot be relocated. Through their training, learners are also sensitized through the daily food gestures, as a citizen consumer of the European space. Finally, all the networks of the partners were mobilized around the issues (both food & training) through a more comprehensive process of lifelong learning, with a view to multiplying the first results initiated by the project over a wider spectrum.