Sustainable Food Destination Organization | SFDO

About Sustainable Food Destination Organization | SFDO

SFDO, the Sustainable Food Destination Organisation, is a non-profit initiative that works to build sustainable food networks for the benefit of local communities and the tourism sector. It brings together food producers, hospitality businesses, retailers, tour operators, and other stakeholders to create destinations where sustainable food production and tourism reinforce one another.

Founded in 2021 and rooted in earlier collaborative projects in Crete, SFDO positions itself as a pre-competitive platform for knowledge sharing, practical collaboration, and solution finding. Its stated aim is to help destinations access sustainable food commodities, strengthen local resilience, and support a more viable future for tourism and local food economies.

Core Values

• Sustainability: SFDO promotes sustainable food production, sustainable hospitality, and more responsible procurement and governance. Its work is framed around long-term environmental, social, and economic wellbeing in destinations.
• Collaboration: The organisation emphasises pre-competitive collaboration, knowledge sharing, and peer learning. It brings together members from different parts of the food and tourism ecosystem to address common challenges.
• Local resilience: SFDO focuses on strengthening local communities, local food economies, and destination resilience. It aims to create added value for places by linking local production with tourism demand.
• Practical action: SFDO highlights hands-on training, field learning, and implementation-oriented solutions. Its approach is to move from awareness to concrete changes in farming, hospitality, and supply chains.

Unique Aspects

• Destination-focused model: SFDO is not a conventional food or tourism business; it is a destination initiative built around the idea of “sustainable food destinations,” where food production and tourism are developed together.
• Pre-competitive forum: The organisation explicitly describes itself as a unique pre-competitive forum where peers can discuss issues, share knowledge, and find solutions without competing with one another.
• Crete-based origin story: SFDO grew out of pilot work in Crete, including the “Connecting Sustainable Winegrowing with the Hospitality Services” project and the later “Taste Crete” initiative, which helped establish the organisation’s model.
• Cross-sector reach: Its membership and activities span farmer cooperatives, food manufacturers, processors, retailers, traders, restaurants, catering units, hotels, hotel groups, and tour operators, giving it unusually broad coverage across the food and tourism value chain.