EFOOD24: Designing for Phygital Food Systems

Co-designing hybrid agri-food systems: are designers really ready to respond? The accelerating hybridization of physical and digital dimensions is profoundly reshaping contemporary agri-food systems, challenging established design practices, competencies and epistemologies. This Special Issue originates from EFOOD24: Designing for Phygital Food Systems, the biennial International Food Design and Food Studies Conference, organized by Food Design for Opportunities, Research & Knowledge (FORK) and hosted by Elisava, and aims to consolidate and critically advance the debate on the role of design in co-designing emerging phygital food systems. Rather than framing the phygital as a set of technological tools, the Special Issue positions it as a socio-technical and cultural condition in which material practices, digital infrastructures, embodied experiences and systemic processes are increasingly intertwined. Building on recent literature and on the collective inquiry activated during EFOOD24, this editorial introduces the phygital as a key interpretative lens for understanding contemporary transformations across the agri-food chain, from production and distribution to consumption, education and governance. The Special Issue brings together seven peer-reviewed research articles that critically explore phygital food systems through diverse yet convergent perspectives, including multisensory experiences, data-driven design, professional kitchens, socio-technical transitions, institutional food services and well-being-oriented gastronomic environments. Taken together, the contributions reveal both the opportunities and tensions inherent in phygital food systems, highlighting issues of agency, ethics, inclusion, governance and long-term sustainability. The editorial argues that designers’ readiness to engage with phygital food futures cannot be reduced to technological literacy alone but requires the development of reflective, systemic and collaborative capacities. By positioning food design as a mediating and meaning-oriented practice, this Special Issue contributes to advancing food design research as a key field for imagining and shaping more conscious and sustainable agri-food futures.