D4.4 Capacity building and helpdesk

This deliverable describes the design, implementation, and outcomes of the CHORIZO project’s capacity building programme and helpdesk service, developed to support actors across the food system in applying social norm-informed approaches to reduce food loss and waste (FLW). CHORIZO — Changing practices and Habits through Open, Responsible, and social Innovation towards ZerO food waste — is a project which recognizes that social norms play a pivotal role in shaping everyday behaviours, and that changing these norms can be a powerful lever for sustainable food practices. To operationalize this insight, the project developed a practical 8-step approach to guide the planning and execution of social norm informed behaviour change interventions and of a respective capacity building programme.The capacity building programme was designed as key mechanism for CHORIZO to translate its research and tools into actionable knowledge for food system actors. Designed to bridge the gap between academic insight and real-world application, the programme targeted a broad range of stakeholders, including policymakers, civil society organisations, local authorities, school and food service actors, food banks and researchers. Its primary aim was to build and improve the capacity of these actors to understand, design, and implement food waste interventions that are rooted in behavioural science, and more specifically, in the dynamics of social norms.The 8-step approach—central to all training activities—provided a clear, structured framework that participants could follow to create their own social norm-informed interventions. To support this, the programme offered a combination of online and face-to-face formats, including two in-person workshops and five online sessions. These were tailored to the needs of specific sectors and enriched with relevant project outputs such as the CHORIZO DataHub, Visualizer, educational materials, and actor-specific guidance documents.The last part of the programme was the DeepAction session, a hands-on workshop in which participants applied the 8-step approach to real-world scenarios focused on reducing food waste. This practical exercise helped to solidify theoretical learning, deepen participants’ understanding of how to identify and shift social norms, and encourage collaborative intervention design.Throughout the programme, CHORIZO emphasized participatory and inclusive learning, informed by a comprehensive needs assessment and guided by the Motivation-Opportunity-Ability (MOA) framework to understand the target groups and participants’ behaviours. A total of 217 stakeholders registered for the sessions, with 129 actively participating. Feedback from these sessions was consistently positive, with all respondents rating the experience as high quality and expressing appreciation for the clarity, relevance, and applicability of the content. The tools introduced were also well received, although some participants indicated a need for more time and support to integrate them fully into their work.While the helpdesk function received less engagement than anticipated—likely due to its more individualized and on-demand format—the project nonetheless fulfilled its commitment to providing follow-up support and fostering continued dialogue through resources such as a LinkedIn community and online resource library.In sum, the CHORIZO capacity building programme successfully achieved its objective of making complex behavioural science concepts accessible and actionable for practitioners seeking to engage more and more effectively in FLW prevention and reduction. By focusing on the role of social norms and equipping actors with a structured method to design and evaluate interventions, the programme laid a strong foundation for considering behaviour change techniques in their FLW interventions and applying the CHORIZO results.