How 120 food players are collectively changing Berlin’s Food Policy

From street stalls to senate halls

When Berlin Isst Anders launched its plea for more visibility for sustainable food, the goal was simple: unite the voices of local, mission-driven food businesses to demand fairer representation in our city’s public spaces. In August 2025, we’ve reached a milestone — 120 companies have signed. And their voices are being heard. What started as a shared call for billboard space has turned into a seat at the table for shaping Berlin’s future food policy.

Why visibility matters for impact

In Berlin’s streets, our eyes are bombarded with messages from cheap meat, sugar-heavy snacks, and climate-harmful products. Meanwhile, the innovators — the ones offering healthy, plant-based, local and climate-friendly alternatives — often remain invisible.

For many signers, this isn’t just a marketing problem, it’s a public health and climate challenge. “Healthy and sustainable food must be as visible as the products that harm our planet and health,” one business owner put it. Another framed it as a matter of fairness: “The question of who gets seen should not be answered by who can spend the most money.”

Visibility means influence. And influence means the power to change habits, shift norms, and accelerate the Ernährungsstrategie — the food system transformation Berlin needs.

From Marketing to Lobbying — A New Kind of Cooperation

The plea is proof that cooperative marketing can double as lobbying. Alone, each business might have stayed in its own niche. Together, they’ve become a movement.

That movement caught the attention of the Berlin Senate. On 22 July, the signers were invited to the Kick-off Breakfast to brainstorm around the updated Berlin Food Strategy. The event, hosted by the Senate Department for Justice and Consumer Protection, gathered food startups, producers, retailers, networks, and policymakers to ensure the perspective of sustainable businesses is part of the city’s next strategic plan.

This is what happens when marketing campaigns carry a shared message with political weight: they open doors that no single actor could push open alone. Building on this opportunity, we are planning to run a full consultation in fall 2025, mixing qualitative insights and quantitative feedback from the hundreds of companies already mobilised around the topic.

Small Players, Big Impact

The businesses behind Berlin Isst Anders are more than brands. They are a collective of innovators who want to create change. To have a concrete impact. They are real pioneers. From community-supported agriculture projects to plant-based innovators, from healthy school meal providers to hyperlocal production systems, they are building a food culture that puts health, climate, and fairness at its core.

"Something has to change. No one is forced to sell unhealthy food."

Many have shared the daily reality: small margins, big visions, and the constant challenge of competing with corporate giants. One signer summed it up: “We work 13 years in two jobs just to keep a sustainable project alive — we need more support, not less.”

Giving these companies visibility is not charity. It is rather an investment in the future of Berlin’s economy, health, and environment.

From Appeal to Action

120 signatures is more than a symbolic number. We see it as a proof point that, when small players unite, they can shift the conversation from what’s on our plates to what’s in our policies.

The next step? Keep growing the coalition, keep showing up in the cityscape, and keep turning cooperative marketing into cooperative lobbying.

If you’re a sustainable food business in Berlin and you haven’t signed yet, now’s the time.

Let’s make sure that when people walk our streets, they see the food that reflects the future we want — healthy, fair, and planet-friendly.

Keep in mind that the initiative started with the plea but now turned into a sustainable, healthy food movement that goes beyond the visibility cause. Every new company joining is signing more than the plea, it is joining a collective of engaged businesses.

So if not done yet, sign the plea here.If already done, you can share it around to 3 contacts who might be interested to sign!

Would you like to know more about the campaign or the movement? Contact us: contact@civocracy.org.