The second annual DIVINFOOD meeting was successfully held from 24 to 28 June 2024 in Denmark and Sweden.

This is always a very important moment in the life of the project: as well as sharing the results of the past year and planning for the next period, these meetings enable DIVINFOOD members to gain a better understanding of the work carried out in each Living Lab, and to discover new initiatives dealing with the production, processing and marketing of NUCs.

After a first day devoted to presentations of the year’s progress and various group activities, we left the sumptuous premises of the Danish Agriculture & Food Council in Copenhagen for the town of Alnarp, in Sweden, where the SLU campus is located. SLU is experimenting with intercropping several pea varieties with cereals and faba beans. This was an opportunity to test an application designed to help those involved in participatory breeding to effectively gather feedback from growers.

In addition to the SLU fields, we visited a local farmer who is also experimenting with pea intercropping, but who also grows old cereal varieties. During the visit, he showed us in detail how he processes these varieties on a small scale. During meals, we had the chance to sample the different varieties of legumes grown at the Danish-Swedish Living Lab during our lunches and dinners on campus.

On the final day, we were hosted by the Copenhagen Hospitality College – a renowned chef training organisation that takes a keen interest in NUCs and has even developed a course dedicated to their cuisine. The school has a vegetable garden, where experiments with legume species are also carried out. Needless to say, we had a wonderful lunch, with examples of dishes featuring NUCs – from starter to dessert.

The day also included a number of product and method presentations from Danish and Swedish processors. For example, we discovered the work of Nordisk Ravara, Bönland and Pure Dansk, who showed us a beautiful recipe for sweets made from Danish Ingrid peas. We were also lucky enough to discover the products of MATR, a company that has developed a recipe for plant-based ‘steak’ using fermented mushrooms.