True Price – From Insight to Action
Project information
In short- Start project: January 2021
- End project: December 2025
- Financier: Topsector Agri & Food
- Contact person: Michiel van Galen
Food production generates societal costs that are not reflected in market prices. The project True Price – From Insight to Action explores how True Cost Accounting (TCA) can help reveal and reduce these hidden costs.
How much does that banana or that package of chocolate sprinkles really cost? When you walk through the supermarket, you only see a fraction of the true cost of food. Price tags don't reveal the societal costs of damage to the rainforest, exploitation of workers, or the spread of animal diseases. True Cost Accounting (TCA) exposes these hidden costs. Not only for consumers, but also for agri-food companies, policymakers, and investors. This allows us to see exactly what we need to work on to make food systems more fair and sustainable across the entire supply chain.
Our approach
In this Public Private Partnership (PPP), Wageningen University & Research worked with food producers, retailers, caterers, financial institutions, knowledge and education institutes, civil society organisations and governments to identify practical actions that can help lower the societal costs of food production.
The project centred on practice-based experiments in which partners exchanged experiences, assessed the feasibility and impact of potential interventions, and developed a shared vision on the role of TCA in building a more sustainable food system.
Project partners included: ABN AMRO, Albert Heijn, AMS Institute, BioNederland, Biowinkelvereniging, Dilmah Europe, Flevo Campus, Municipality of Amsterdam, Municipality of Almere, HAS green academy, Hutten Catering, LTO Nederland, MVO Nederland, Oregional, PlantLab, PintoA, Power-ED, Rainforest Alliance, RESPECTfarms, RIVM, Solidaridad, TAPP Coalition, Transitiecoalitie Voedsel, True Price, Udea, Verstegen Spices & Sauces, V’Business Vitam, VLB, WUR-FB.
“True Cost Accounting is an important tool for identifying areas in the production process or supply chain where more sustainable choices can be made.”
- Jan Paul van Soest and Maritha Werther
- Food Transition Coalition
Results
The project started with an overview of existing initiatives and expectations regarding TCA. Read True cost accounting in the Netherlands (Dutch, English summary) and True pricing and sustainable food systems (Dutch, English summary) for details.
Encourage consumers to adopt more sustainable behaviour. Relevant publications include:
- Creating trust and consumer value for true price food products
- How do consumers view True Pricing? (Dutch)
- How do consumers view the True Price concept? (Dutch)
Support companies in achieving more sustainable production. See:
- Towards sustainable and inclusive coffee procurement (Dutch)
- Social sustainability in laboratory coat supply chains (Dutch)
- The true costs of the environmental impact of catering (Dutch)
- Strengthened procurement criteria for coffee on behalf of Dutch universities (Dutch)
- Societal impacts of food from short supply chains (Dutch, English summary)
- Return on household labour: a means to accelerate the path to a living income for smallholder coffee farming households
- Short supply chains in catering (Dutch)
- True Cost Accounting as a tool for companies to improve sustainability (Dutch, English summary)
For sustainability-oriented internal management, see True cost accounting in internal operations: benefits, pitfalls and practical examples (Dutch).
For certification bodies to support sustainable consumer and business choices.
For public policy. See:
The contribution of TCA to sustainable public policy (Dutch, English summary)
How TCA supports measuring Broad Prosperity (Dutch, English summary).
For area-based sustainability approaches, see True Cost Accounting in an area-based approach (Dutch).
Added value compared with other instruments
We also explored the added value of TCA compared with other tools available to governments and businesses. See A guide to conducting TCA for short food chains (Dutch).
Data requirements for TCA
A key issue in calculating true costs is the availability and quality of data. See: Data for True Cost Accounting.
TCA and the protein transition
For the protein transition, we mapped societal impacts using TCA. See: Societal impact of the protein transition (Dutch).
Further development of TCA
Read our perspective (Dutch) on strengthening TCA as a robust, harmonised and widely supported methodology.
Why choose WUR?
The benefits
Wageningen University & Research studies how True Cost Accounting helps organisations understand hidden food system costs, enabling them to make more sustainable decisions.
- Proven applicability of TCA in diverse settings
- Practice-based experimentation grounded in science
- Tested with partners throughout the food supply chain
Questions about this project?
Do you have a question about PPS True Price – From Insight to Action, or would you like to collaborate? Please contact us.
