Greece is well known for the richness and diversity of its gastronomy. Traditional food production and local quality ingredients are still vivid and appreciated by the population. In this context, sustainable food is only starting to be an issue. The interest in the population for organic healthy food is emerging at the same moment of drastic economic crisis generating food poverty and demand of cheaper ingredients.

Growing

The agro-food system and agricultural sector maintains a key position in the Greek economy with agriculture representing 12.4% of the active population.

Greece is a mountainous country with small fertile plains but little good grazing land and little cattle-raising. Although Greece has a deficit in beef production, the consumption of beef is not limited. On the contrary it is quite widespread, since beef is the main type of meet consumed in the country. The high demand is mainly covered through imports from France, Netherlands and Denmark.

Lamb is more prominent and the milk of sheep and goats goes into the making of numerous excellent cheeses, as well as first-rate yoghurt. Poultry and eggs are also very popular while olive oil replaces butter.

Greece is surrounded by seas and fishing involves thousands of employees. More than half fishing production is made up of aquaculture, 80% of which is exported.

The region of Attica is one of the oldest wine-growing regions in the world and there are dozens of excellent wines available. In the region a lot of wineries have open doors to visitors either for wine tourism or for the organisation of events. Moreover, ‘barrels opening day’ is celebrated by the winemakers of Attica every year. It counts three products PDO (Protected Designations of Origin): figs from Vravrona and pistachio from Aegina and Megara. About one sixth of its agricultural land is certified organic. And more than 6500 farms are registered in the region and part of them produces non-certified traditional quality products. The population of Athens seems somewhat reluctant to buy food from the close region unsure of its quality because of the high urbanization and important industrial activity. Although air pollution does not seems to be an issue: if it may be a threat for the health within the city it doesn’t affect much food quality.

The area covered by the Municipality of Athens is mainly limestone and provides few opportunities for urban farming, mainly because of the densely built urban fabric. The majority of residences are apartment buildings. The percentage of gardens is low. Most apartment buildings have terraces but very often already occupied by solar panels to produce hot water.

Recent town planning has revealed that there are 750 acres of undeveloped and neglected open spaces scattered around the city. These include deserted army bases, abandoned factories with some 10-20 acres spaces in the Chelidonous area and in Elaiona and smaller 1-2 acres scattered places all over the city.

Delivering

From the areas where food is grown the food is distributed in major distributors or directly to small-medium warehouses. There is the central fruit and vegetable market which covers a large part of the distributed products.

Most of the final consumer distribution is based on supermarkets with a persistence of small neighbourhood shops and food street markets operating in the morning and early afternoon and managed by the Municipality (control, cleaning…). In these street markets, a significant number of farmers from neighbouring areas directly bring their products to the consumers (see Organic open air farmers markets).

| Organic open air farmers markets | During the last decade, open-air organic farmers markets develop. They mostly operate in the late afternoon/early evening. A list of these markets is available on the Internet with schedule and places. But they are not regulated by the Municipality and therefore less embedded in Athens citizens habits. Organic farmers directly sell they products reinforcing the link between local producers and Athens’ consumers. Organic and non-organic markets develop as two parallel channels nether mixing to avoid quality and price discrimination.

Promoting sustainable food through public green procurement is in the focus of the Municipality but only at early exploration stage. The current national public procurement rules are very rigid and do not leave much space to orient public canteens towards sustainable organic local menus (see Athens Municipal Nurseries). The non-stop working day starting at 8:00 – 9:00 to finish around 15:00 without lunch break makes that public canteen are reduced to the one in schools and nurseries limiting the possibility to leverage on public procurement to promote sustainable food. On top of that situation the current economic crisis pushes administrations to reduce costs in general and targeting more cost efficient products.

Enjoying

Athens has countless fabulous locations (seaside localities, the fascinating historical centre, urban and suburban places of great beauty) as well as pleasant weather during much of the year and its inhabitants enjoy good food and eating out. Thus, there are thousands of eating-places in all these parts of Athens providing inhabitants and a large numbers of tourists, especially in the summer. Apart from numerous restaurants with foreign cuisine, hundreds exist serving the world-famous Greek cuisine known for both its health benefits and its fabulous tastefulness and including in particular extra-virgin olive oil, green vegetables (raw, cooked, stuffed), fresh fish and seafood, tasty bread, honey, amazing desserts, good wines.

Athens citizens as well as Greek population in general are keen of good local ingredients and traditional flavours. They get more and more interested in the origin of the food they consume and prefer Greek products instead of imported ones. They consider Greece as a small country and tend to assimilate national and local production. There is a growing interest in the protection of the environment and into sustainable food but this phenomenon still need to strengthen and wider develop.

The demand for organic food is also raising but tends to be slowed down by the economic recession.

Catering is suffering from the crisis. In the past decades eating out as opposed to eating at home increased very much. This trend has reversed drastically in the last 2-3 years and the percentage of persons working in food service outlets has drastically decreased since 2008 by approx. 20%.