Discovering short food supply chains good practices in urban areas
The Short Supply Chain Knowledge and Innovation Network, SKIN, is where good practices and local stories of innovation in the short food chains domain are. This is the place where food plays an essential role in bringing producers and society values on food together.
On October 5th and 6th, the project held its third meeting in Paris and was hosted by ACTIA, the French Network of food technology institutes. Together with the technical advances of the project, the consortium had the opportunity to meet three French initiatives, driving change in the way local food producers reach and engage with local citizens.
La ruche qui dit Oui, AMAP, Mangeons local en Ile de France are shining examples of community initiatives providing support to citizens to start their online farmer's market, community supported agriculture connecting citizens and small farmers to preserve the food system and local networks of R&D projects in short and proximity food chains for food sustainability. They all conveyed at the SKIN meeting as active actors in the short food supply chain domain and to bring their own experience and expertise in the field.
The SKIN technical activities reached the target of the collection of 100 good practices at EU level, being innovative practices in the short food chain domain and the primary target of the project innovation challenge workshops. The thematic workshops will explore the core topics and unravel the main challenges connected to the project objectives, including, short food chains products freshness, distribution and industries, technologies, new skills, the role of AKIS, consumers and society, regulation.
To tackle all the aforementioned topics, dedicated working groups have been set up, being in charge of explore each challenge and coordinate the EU-level workshops. SKIN will travel around Europe to engage with local stakeholders and connect local good practices one with the other, to exchange knowledge and foster bottom-up innovation in the short food supply chain domain. Out of these thematic workshops, 30 ideas on innovation while coaching services will be generated and provided respectively for 10 new demand-driven projects, with the ultimate goal of fostering new models for food producers and citizens to come closer together based on trust and on shared values on food.
Provided by Youris.com