Increasing urban food-related health and environmental problems are raising an urgent need for action. Current agrifood studies tend to neglect the broader societal and spatial impacts of food. PUREFOOD will reduce the high knowledge and skills deficit that negatively affects the capacity to deliver political and developmental solutions related to food security, public procurement, health and sustainable regional development. Through its innovative methodology, the interdisciplinary courses, private and public sector involvement, the holistic conceptualization of sustainable food and the formation of Communities of Practice (CoPs) that include actors at all stages of the food chain, PUREFOOD contributes to Commission’s aim to deal with economic, social and environmental policies in mutually reinforcing ways. We study an alternative geography of food, based upon three emerging trends; sustainable food supply chains, public sector food procurement practices and (peri-)urban food strategies. Each is topic of a scientific WP with 4 ESRs in individual research projects using case study methodology. The related training aims to transfer disciplinary scientific knowledge and skills between complementary groups, leading to a coherent frame of basic and advanced scientific, professional and host institute training modules, and to interactively develop scientific and professional knowledge and skills through ‘learning-by-doing’ in CoPs for each WP. PUREFOOD consists of 7 full academic partners and 8 associated partners (private sector and socio-economic partners). PUREFOOD’s coordinator has ample experience in managing international interdisciplinary research and training projects. The commitment of private and public organisations and NGOs as associated partners illustrate the timeliness of our proposal and impact to the career perspectives of the ESRs. Completed CDPs give access to a PhD degree at every partner university.