Palermo
Palermo aims to activate a place-based transformation of the local food environment by combining youth food literacy, cultural storytelling, and policy co-design.
About Palermo
Palermo — on the northwest of the island of Sicily by the Tyrrhenian Sea — is a cultural capital of Sicily. It is noted for its gastronomy and culture, which have played important roles over the city’s history spanning more than two millennia.
As a Twin city in Bauhaus Bites, Palermo will create a Bauhaus Bites Food Environment around the EPYC youth center and its community, bringing together the city’s rich food heritage and vibrant youth energy to transform the local food environment.
Building an Inclusive and Sustainable Food Culture
The Palermo pilot will be anchored at EPYC, a youth center in Palermo’s historic city center engaging over 9,000 young members. The center will host a yearly programme of participatory activities focused on sustainable consumption habits, low-impact food practices, and multicultural food identities.
A key initiative will be the development of a Youth Sustainable Kitchen Lab in collaboration with the EPYC kitchen staff, exploring practical approaches to seasonality, local sourcing, waste reduction, and ethical communication through shared learning and replicable methods for community-based kitchens.
In parallel, Palermo will reclaim the city’s living food culture through crowdsourced foodscape mapping, gamified urban missions, and a series of Kitchen Talks documenting local and multicultural food stories while countering foodification dynamics.
Nature-Based Solutions will also play a role through DIY micro-growing modules, including small hydroponic or low-soil systems designed for young participants, showing how food production can be reintroduced even in minimal urban spaces.
Finally, the project will support the foundations of an inclusive Palermo Food Policy through an Advisory Team and co-creation workshops with the Municipality and local stakeholders, producing shared recommendations and a collaborative manifesto aligned with New European Bauhaus values.