CUES at the Forefront of EU Food System Monitoring

During our recent CUES Consortium Meeting in March 2025, João Costa Leite, Scientific Officer at the Joint Research Centre (JRC) and member of the CUES Advisory Board, delivered a compelling presentation on the development of the EU Food System Monitoring Framework. His intervention underlined the urgent need for robust, reliable indicators to guide the transition towards a more sustainable and resilient European food system.

“Reliable food consumption indicators are essential to support evidence-based policymaking and stakeholder action for a sustainable future,” he noted.

João Costa Leite presented the work being conducted within the JRC to build a comprehensive monitoring dashboard that reflects the complexity of the EU food system. This framework addresses not only environmental and nutritional dimensions, but also economic and social factors—such as affordability, inclusiveness, food messaging, and dietary health outcomes.

Linking Research to Action: CUES’ Contribution

The CUES project strongly aligns with the principles presented by JRC. Through large-scale representative surveys across multiple EU countries, CUES is gathering data on sustainable food behaviours among both general consumers and vulnerable groups. These data will play a key role in identifying and evaluating consumption-related indicators—contributing to policy development that is grounded in citizen realities.

As part of the CUES mission, these findings will feed into efforts to:

• Enhance food labelling and information transparency
• Promote healthier and more sustainable dietary patterns
• Support policy dialogues through actionable insights

This collaboration between science, policy, and public engagement is at the heart of the Triple Change model that CUES champions—addressing cultural change, value chain transformation, and policy reform in parallel.

Learn More

• Access the EU Food System Monitoring Dashboard developed by JRC:
  https://datam.jrc.ec.europa.eu/datam/mashup/EU_FOOD_SYSTEM_MONITORING/index.html
• Read the JRC technical report and the related peer-reviewed paper