Three food studies and the social value of Amsterdam’s food initiatives

Amsterdam’s food strategy

The City of Amsterdam is working towards a healthy, fair, sustainable and affordable local food system. The food strategy’s implementation agenda focuses on six action lines to realise and scale up concrete projects, including support for existing initiatives such as the food circle in Amsterdam-Noord. The “Onderzoek dat Voedt!” knowledge session brought research and practice together on the Day of the Food Transition.

Amsterdam food strategy (Open Research Amsterdam) · Amsterdam food strategy (amsterdam.nl)

From informal food aid to preventive infrastructure

Three studies, three angles

The three studies were carried out independently, but share the MKBA (social cost-benefit) methodology and the same subject: the social value of food initiatives in Amsterdam.

The cost of doing nothing

Without the 32 food initiatives in Amsterdam-Noord, annual social costs would rise to an estimated €45–55 million: roughly €5,500 per person for around 16,000 people.

These costs arise because the commercial food system is designed for volume and margin rather than nutrition or fairness — and because part of the resulting social burden lands with initiatives instead of mainstream provisions.

What 32 initiatives already achieve

The 32 food initiatives already function as social infrastructure: 13 distribution points, 13 social restaurants, 2 connection points, 3 urban farming locations and 1 food hub.

Together, these five infrastructure types generate the estimated €15 million in social value per year. What the MKBA counts within that:

A small public contribution, a large preventive return

The municipal contribution of €0.92 million per year (roughly 6% of the value realised) leverages into €1.70 million in total annual costs and €15 million in social value per year — an estimated €11–16 in social value per municipal euro, and €3 to €30 in social value per public euro depending on the intervention.

Recognition is the first intervention

The MKBA sets out five steps to anchor informal food initiatives as social infrastructure:

1. Recognise — name food initiatives as social infrastructure, not charity.
2. Stabilise — provide structural funding, space and operational baseline security.
3. Coordinate — invest in governance, data, shared logistics and monitoring.
4. Scale — build coverage through packages combining direct aid and supporting infrastructure.
5. Monitor & adjust — ongoing monitoring, participation and FIES-based learning.

Structural anchoring further requires four building blocks: recognition & anchoring (as collectively supported social infrastructure, with structural funding, housing and logistical support), coordinated investment (conditions such as kitchen space and a shared facilities cooperative combined with scaling and institutional anchoring), governance & collaboration (a food coordinator and network coordinator to prevent fragmentation) and monitoring & participation (the Food Insecurity Experience Scale and resident involvement to break down cultural and language barriers).

At full scale-up to the remaining 80% of the potential reach, an estimated €30–40 million in additional costs could be avoided.

The calculation model is publicly available

The calculation model behind the MKBA was built specifically for this study in two modules — one for current value (based on fieldwork and 23 interviews), one for scenarios covering 14 interventions — and is free to use in Google Sheets or Excel. A separate tab lists every source and formula. Dozens of food initiatives are already using their own copy of the model.

Open the food initiative calculator

Mensa Mensa: the social value of a healthy neighbourhood meal

Mensa Mensa (Public Food) combines access, routine, food skills and social embedding into a working neighbourhood model. A modelled standard location delivers an estimated €0.70 million net social value per year, a benefit-cost ratio of 3.2.

The fair price of our food

Beyond the till receipt, a shadow price captures the health and environmental damage of a meal. The average Dutch diet costs an estimated €3.04 per person per day in external damage — €0.57 health and €2.47 environment — roughly €1,110 per person per year, or €4,440 for a household of four.

€0.57 health + €2.47 environment = €3.04 per person per day

The Mensa Mensa meal scores favourably here: roughly on par with the Dutch “Wheel of Five” dietary guideline, and well below fast food and ultra-processed food.

Shadow price per meal (565 g). Consumer price: Mensa Mensa meal €5.00, ultra-processed €3.74, fast food €11.83.

The food environment shapes what Amsterdammers eat

Building up and phasing out at the same time

The shift towards a healthy food environment runs through an old practice phasing out and a new practice building up, across five scenarios: (1) cooking together and building food skills, (2) an environment that makes healthy eating easier, (3) Mensa Mensa as a neighbourhood model, (4) Mensa Mensa as an open model, and (5) healthy food as a basic provision. The transition tends to stall on the build-up side: phasing out unsustainable practices and connecting scattered initiatives lags behind.

What does the baseline scenario cost — and how much of that is health?

Three calculation lenses set out the social costs of the baseline scenario (no intervention) side by side, each attributing a different share to health.

Source: Mensa Mensa impact assessment v1.2, chapter 3 and table 3.9. The health component alone ranges from roughly €207 to €333 per person per year; total social costs per person per year are higher still.

Voedselcirkel Amsterdam as an urban food hub

Voedselcirkel Amsterdam connects food surpluses, logistics and neighbourhood initiatives. The value of a food hub lies not in the kilos, but in the coordination: gathering surpluses, matching them to demand, safeguarding quality and redistributing them purposefully.

How much prevention funding actually goes to food?

Beyond the three New Economy studies, the knowledge session raised a broader question. Food-related healthcare spending ranges — depending on the framing used — from roughly €1.6 to €10.4 billion per year (RIVM/VTV 2018, RIVM/VZinfo 2022). The share that comes back as prevention funding is small under almost every reading: roughly 0.30% to 1.94% of attributed healthcare spending, compared with 5.10% for physical activity. That points to less direct funding for préventing the consequences of poor diet than for some other lifestyle themes. The full comparison — including physical activity, alcohol and smoking, and figures for both 2015 and 2022 — is set out in a separate article.