Montpellier, France
First Mover!*
First Movers are cities, local governments, or public institutions (like universities, schools or hospitals) that have at least one meal per week that is completely dedicated to vegetarian foods. This is often alongside other great programs like public education and organic sourcing, but the main criteria is having at least one dedicated vegetarian meal or day per week.
Montpellier, the 7th biggest city in France, implemented one veggie meal per week and one week out of two this meal is 100% plant-based. This new initiative will begin to be enforced beginning in September 2019.
In Montpellier, 13,600 meals are served every day in public schools. Montpellier authorities said they want to raise children awareness on the impact our food has on our natural resources, our climate and our biodiversity. They are working with scientists and professional in order to establish criteria and references about quality (in terms of nutrition) standards.
In addition, Montpellier has developed a proactive food purchasing policy to seek out local supplies of organic food. This policy involves meeting with small local producers and farmers and putting quality over price.
Greenpeace’s global challenge:
Our supporters are challenging cities to race to the top on meat reduction to protect our climate, forests, and water. We aim to have at least 50 cities commit to serving two vegetarian meals (no meat or dairy options) in all public canteens weekly by the end of 2019. We expect to have at least 100 global cities make this or a greater commitment toward less and better meat and more plant-rich meals by 2020.