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A Framework for Sustainable Food Systems: Balancing Environmental, Nutritional, and Socioeconomic Goals

A Special Issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050) belonging to the section "Sustainable Food".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 15 November 2026 | Viewed by 1926

Editors

Dr. Alice Stiletto

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Land, Environment, Agriculture and Forestry, University of Padova, 35020 Legnaro, Italy
Interests: consumer behavior; front-of-pack labels; Nutri-Score; Eco-Score, agri-food marketing; risk management, food policy
Prof. Dr. Samuele Trestini

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Land, Environment, Agriculture and Forestry (TESAF), University of Padova, 35020 Legnaro, Italy
Interests: agricultural policy and economics; agribusiness; agri-food market and marketing; agricultural risk management
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

This Special Issue aims to explore how front-of-pack labels (FOPLs) and other food information tools can contribute to the development of sustainable food systems, integrating nutritional, environmental, and socioeconomic goals. While front-of-pack labeling schemes were originally designed to help consumers make healthier dietary choices, their potential role in promoting sustainability—by influencing purchasing behavior, market dynamics, and food policies—is becoming increasingly relevant.

The purpose of this Special Issue is to bring together interdisciplinary research from the fields of nutrition, consumer behavior, agricultural and food economics, and environmental economics to investigate how labeling systems and information strategies can support the transition toward healthier and more sustainable diets.

The topic aligns closely with Sustainability’s scope, as it addresses key interactions between food consumption and sustainability at multiple levels.

Although the Special Issue will primarily focus on front-of-pack labels, contributions addressing broader perspectives, such as consumer understanding or policy instruments for sustainable food systems, are also welcome.

Based on these themes, this Special Issue intends to collect scientific contributions and original research articles on, but not limited to, the following topics:

  • The evaluation of front-of-pack labeling schemes (e.g., Nutri-Score, Eco-Score, etc.) and their effectiveness in promoting healthy and sustainable choices;
  • The interactions between nutritional and environmental labeling and their impact on consumer perception and decision-making;
  • Behavioral and experimental approaches to consumers’ understanding of food labeling;
  • Communication and education strategies to enhance food literacy and sustainable choices;
  • The economic impact of front-of-pack labels (e.g., Nutri-Score) on consumer choices for quality products (GIs, organic, etc.);
  • Policy implications and future directions for labeling systems in sustainable food systems.

In this Special Issue, both original research articles and review papers are welcome.

We look forward to receiving your valuable contributions.

Dr. Alice Stiletto
Prof. Dr. Samuele Trestini
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-anonymized peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • consumer behavior
  • front-of-pack labels
  • nutri-score
  • agri-food marketing
  • sustainable food systems

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Further information on MDPI's Special Issue policies can be found here.

Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

29 pages, 1567 KB  
Article
From Taste to Non-Waste: Food Patterns and Family Eating Styles Behind Children’s Acceptance of a Planetary Healthy School Recipe—Findings from a Large-Scale Study in EU School Canteens
by Maria Giovanna Onorati, Nadia Tecco and Franco Fassio
Sustainability 2026, 18(18), 9437; https://doi.org/10.3390/su18189437 - 15 Sep 2026
Viewed by 183
Abstract
Public school canteens are increasingly recognized as welfare institutions democratizing food access and promoting healthier and more sustainable dietary patterns, as well as arenas where children’s tastes are shaped through family socialization and collective dining. Drawing on cultural sociology and practice theory, this [...] Read more.
Public school canteens are increasingly recognized as welfare institutions democratizing food access and promoting healthier and more sustainable dietary patterns, as well as arenas where children’s tastes are shaped through family socialization and collective dining. Drawing on cultural sociology and practice theory, this study conceptualizes children’s acceptance of new sustainable dishes as negotiation between competing normative contexts, where early forms of singularization emerge. The analysis draws on a large-scale dataset involving 2481 children aged 9–15 across 16 schools in 12 European countries. Acceptance of plant-based meals was assessed by combining self-reported food-related values and participant observation of plate waste. The findings indicate that 75.6% showed at least partial acceptance, with 46.9% leaving nothing on the plate. Among twelve socio-cultural constructs, six showed statistically significant (p < 0.05) associations with plate waste, among which food neophilia was the strongest predictor, followed by peer-oriented canteen sociability and ethical-environmental values, while hedonic orientation predicted higher waste. The results suggest that acceptance is co-produced through home kitchen cultures and institutional settings. Strengthening school–family alignment, embedding menus in local gastronomic contexts, and enhancing conviviality can improve acceptance and reduce waste, positioning canteens as sites for sustainable food systems and democratic gastro-citizenship. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue A Framework for Sustainable Food Systems: Balancing Environmental, Nutritional, and Socioeconomic Goals)
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28 pages, 2150 KB  
Article
Sustainable and Healthy School Food Procurement: From Policy to Tender Design in Portugal
by Ana Oliveira, Rosário Oliveira, José Camolas and Maria João Estorninho
Sustainability 2026, 18(18), 9358; https://doi.org/10.3390/su18189358 - 11 Sep 2026
Viewed by 449
Abstract
Public Food Procurement can shape diets, markets, and territorial food systems, yet its strategic potential depends on how policy objectives are translated into tender design, contract management, and territorial food policy governance. The study draws on a predominantly international literature-based review of recommendations [...] Read more.
Public Food Procurement can shape diets, markets, and territorial food systems, yet its strategic potential depends on how policy objectives are translated into tender design, contract management, and territorial food policy governance. The study draws on a predominantly international literature-based review of recommendations and selected country experiences to contextualize the analysis and identify relevant good practices. At the European Union and Portuguese levels, it systematically compares the applicable policy and legal frameworks and examines how they are translated into Portuguese procurement practice. It also situates Public Food Procurement within recent Portuguese debates on food transition, metropolitan food-system planning, and multifunctional agrifood parks. A qualitative documentary and regulatory analysis was conducted using a four-pillar framework—health, environmental, social and economic—operationalized through 28 criteria. The empirical corpus comprised 53 school food procurement procedures published in Portugal in 2023. Technical specifications or equivalent documents were unavailable for 15 procedures; the cases were retained in the fixed denominator of every criterion and pillar index, so the results shown are conservative full-corpus measures of publicly observable documentary incorporation. The reliability matrix retained all 53 procedures, but ordinal Krippendorff’s alpha was estimated from the 1064 units containing pairable ratings and was 0.625 (95% bootstrap CI: 0.576–0.667). Health achieved the highest aggregate index (37%), followed by environmental (17%), social (15%), and economic criteria (8%). Although 58% used Most Economically Advantageous Tender (MEAT) terminology, only 13% applied genuine multi-factor evaluation, while approximately four in five procedures were effectively price-only. The findings should therefore be interpreted as evidence of documentary incorporation and observability rather than supplier compliance or direct health and environmental outcomes. They indicate that a major documented weakness lies not in lack of legal authority, but in weak translation into measurable award criteria, contract clauses, monitoring mechanisms, and integrated local or regional food-policy strategies. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue A Framework for Sustainable Food Systems: Balancing Environmental, Nutritional, and Socioeconomic Goals)
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17 pages, 797 KB  
Article
University Research for the Improvement of SDGs: A Framework for Mapping and Assessing SDG Science at the Country Level
by Sérgio Evangelista Silva, Savio Figueira Corrêa, Cecília Silva Monnerat and Rafael Lucas Machado Pinto
Sustainability 2026, 18(11), 5482; https://doi.org/10.3390/su18115482 - 30 May 2026
Viewed by 856
Abstract
Humankind is facing the enormous challenge of ensuring a sustainable future for new generations. A key guide to addressing this challenge is the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which aim to promote economic and social development and environmental preservation. Despite the good intentions embedded [...] Read more.
Humankind is facing the enormous challenge of ensuring a sustainable future for new generations. A key guide to addressing this challenge is the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which aim to promote economic and social development and environmental preservation. Despite the good intentions embedded in the SDGs, current performance worldwide remains below expectations. To be effective, the progress on the SDGs depends on the creation of new scientific knowledge. In this context, universities and research institutes should play a fundamental role in generating new scientific knowledge. Although recent models have been developed to assess universities’ knowledge creation to advance the SDGs, it remains necessary to develop new models that can more effectively evaluate and detail this capability. The goal of this article is to introduce a three-level framework for identifying SDG science at the country level across universities and research institutes. This model is validated through a documentary study based on SciVal-Elsevier data, on Brazilian universities, and a research institute in the context of SDG 2 research—zero hunger—between 2015 and 2024. As the main results, the framework provides three levels of knowledge mapping based on subject areas, knowledge categories, and cluster names, whereas the first and the last are used in the Scopus database, and the third is proposed in this study. As a result, this framework consists of a practical instrument for the mapping of the effective issues addressed in each SDG, and for comparing the effective content of SDG science between research institutions. As the main contribution, this article introduces a practical instrument for the assessment of the contribution of universities and research institutes in SDG science. Theoretically, this framework provides a practical process for rapidly identifying the current SDG science performance in research institutions at the country level. For practical purposes, this study can be used by universities, research institutes, and policymakers to understand the current state of SDG science in a country or region and to develop new research programmes and strategies for SDG science and innovation. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue A Framework for Sustainable Food Systems: Balancing Environmental, Nutritional, and Socioeconomic Goals)
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