”The measures are aimed at promoting targeted collaboration among relevant industries’ SMEs, already being in the bioeconomy sector or intending to become its participants/stakeholders. Cooperation measures foreseen: B2B events, mutual consultations and technological support, as well as larger events: workshops, hackathons, etc. involving a greater number of companies and ensuring the sharing, exchange and acquisition of knowledge and skills. Cooperation is envisaged addressing companies directly or by and with the support of organisations, representing their interests: associations, clusters, networks, etc.”
We are happy to hear about good examples of co-operation of SMEs under this topic.
We had a pleasure to have Latvian delegation visiting us here in Central Finland related to Finnish Craftmanships in Food Craftmanship. There will soon be more information about the visit. However, you can already check the results of the competition here: https://www.artesaaniruoka2019.fi/en/news
Here you can find a short summary report on Latvian delegation visit to Central Finland. @kristaps.rocans , @suvi , and @Anna were involved in this. And yes, I learnt a lot and totally recommend these kind of short visits!
The Interreg BSR project ‘Baltic Sea Food’ has done activities related to supporting local food networks from BSR area interested in launching B2B distribution of local food products in business model and process innovation. They have also started with the ‘Baltic Sea Menu/Cuisine’.
Is there something we can learn from this project, or some results we could apply? Any inspirations for future actions?
*In Central Finland in RDI2CluB-project we have this year worked to promote local food. Below is a summary of our (Regional Council of Central Finland) work.We would be happy to hear about the similar or different kind of local food promotion work in other regions. Do you have any good practices to share?
Local food promotion in Central Finland
In Central Finland, small municipalities discussed together on the possible actions to increase their competitiveness and livelihood. In this discussion, held in May 2019. RDI2CLuB had a possibility to hold a workshop on bioeconomy potential in rural areas. The topic the municipalities managers raised on the table was local food. In RDI2CluB, Regional Council of Central Finland took this as a challenge and started to work for promoting local food.
Step 1. State-of-the -art study
Regional Council of Central Finland started immediately to gather information on the use of local products in public catering. All 23 municipalities were approached with short survey on the local food in their kitchens. 13 municipalities responded. Simultaneously and external expert work was conducted to study the suppliers images and obstacles on local food for the public kitchens. Regional Council of Central Finland also did literature study to find examples on local food consumption to local economy. All these three topics were gathered together for a short report. The main outcomes of the report were:
Local food is not very much in use in Central Finland’s municipalities. From answers, the local food rate varied between 0 – 25%, where the majority was between 0-5% of total food product value.
Public tendering is seen as obstacle. The tendering is not seen as enabler, but as an obstacle. However, municipalities with higher rate in local food have understood also the possibilities of the public tendering process and can use this as a tool for their local purchases.
Dialogue between the producers and public kitchens should be encouraged. Public kitchens do not necessarily know who the producers are, on the other hand producers o not actively offer their products to kitchens. Networking and building contacts require time the kitchens or the producers not necessarily have.
Foresighting in procurements. In many cases public kitchens know their consumption well in advance. This enables the tendering e.g. prior the growing season, so the vegetable producers can already answer to the demand by cultivating right amount of plants.
Dialogue also in recipes. This dialogue is a necessity, especially sine the public kitchens are equipped with certain type of machines. To know what the requirements is will help the producers to modify their products to meet the demands of a kitchen.
A place (virtual of live) for local food markets, including logistic solutions, is a necessity
Step 2. Results and dialogue
This report main outcomes were published in a seminar 20.11.2019. This seminar was held simultaneously in three different locations in Central Finland and it included a networking workshop. In seminar, the main focus was on discussions from the stakeholders, the best practices and the development of the local food markets. The main outcomes were:
It is possible. Both public catering and restaurants have successful examples on increasing the share of the local products usage. These examples have several common features: 1) an enthusiastic individual who is willing to make the difference 2) building up the network of suppliers 3) Joint development of the products and recipes with the producers to meet the demands of the facilities
Based on these discussions, a need for further networking is obvious. The producers, especially fisheries, are working already on this. The marketing of a product to kitchens, and on the other hand the transparency of the requirements the products have, should be available.
Step 3. Further activation
After the compilation of the report “Local food in Central Finland”, it is obvious that this theme needs further activities. In Winter/Spring 2020 Regional Council of Central Finland will conduct an additional study on this topic. One focus could be recipes – to codevelop public catering recipes so, that they maximize the use of local products. Another option is to make the public catering requirements more visible – including the requirements due to equipment’s and processing level for the producers.
This regional pilot connected to JAP 2.3.2 Cooperation of bioeconomy SMEs and is conducted by the Regional Council of Central Finland.
