FoodHeritage Network

Food is more than what we eat, it is living cultural heritage. Traditional recipes, local ingredients and communal food practices carry centuries of knowledge about how communities relate to their landscapes, seasons and each other. In December 2025, UNESCO recognised this by inscribing Italian cuisine as the first complete national cuisine on its Intangible Cultural Heritage list, highlighting food as a vehicle of identity, sustainability and social cohesion.
Yet research on food heritage remains fragmented. Food scientists study what heritage foods contain, heritage scholars examine what they mean, and tourism researchers explore how they attract visitors. But these disciplines rarely work together. The FoodHeritage network bridges this gap by bringing together four European universities with complementary expertise: Breda University of Applied Sciences (Netherlands) in hospitality, tourism and sensory research; the University of Camerino (Italy) in food chemistry, nutrition and sustainable agri-food systems; the Polytechnic University of Tomar (Portugal) in food heritage, biocultural systems and gastronomic tourism; and Opole University of Technology (Poland) in food safety, public health nutrition and digital food quality assessment.
All four partners are members of the KreativEU European University Alliance, meaning the network builds on existing institutional collaboration rather than starting from scratch. Over a twelve-month period, the consortium will develop a shared research agenda and prepare two European funding proposals: one for the European Partnership for Resilient Cultural Heritage (focusing on traditional food knowledge as a resource for community resilience) and one for a Horizon Europe call on sustainable cultural tourism. Activities include joint methodology workshops, an international conference in Poland, a network conference with Taste Lab demonstrations in Breda, and collaborative proposal writing sessions. The network aims to position food heritage research as a European priority, by connecting scientific evidence, cultural preservation and sustainable tourism development for the benefit of communities across Europe.