The CO-FRESH project has achieved a significant milestone with the successful organization of 8 open national workshops, 7 of them related to each one of the 7 Pilot Cases located in 6 EU countries (Italy, Spain, The Netherlands, France, Poland, and Hungary) and an additional one in Slovakia to present main project outcomes. These events served as valuable platforms for showcasing and discussing different technological and non-technological innovations across the entire food value chain. Held in various locations, the workshops attracted a diverse audience, including practitioners, researchers, industry professionals, policymakers, and consumers. This diverse participation fostered a rich exchange of ideas and perspectives, leading to a deeper understanding of the challenges and opportunities associated with achieving a more sustainable food system.

The essence of this Business Model Toolkit lies in its role as a comprehensive reference tool, benefiting a diverse spectrum of stakeholders along the agri-food value chain. These stakeholders encompass farmers, farmers' organizations, the food industry, food-related services, consumers, environmental and social non-governmental organizations (NGOs), as well as public authorities. Its primary objective is to facilitate the transition towards sustainability-driven cooperative business models.

Building upon the insights from Deliverable 1.5, "Impact of public policies on sustainable innovation in agri-food chains" generated in WP1, Task 7.3 has actively participated in meetings with the Strategic Working Group (SWG) SCAR-Food Systems and SWG SCAR-Agriculture and Knowledge Innovation Systems (AKIS) to produce a joint policy brief. This brief addresses the challenges and solutions related to sustainability in the agri-food chain, considering climate conditions, dwindling natural resources, power imbalances, changing demographics, and dietary habits. It is co-created with the sister projects funded under the Horizon 20202 call topics RUR-06 and RUR-07

The purpose of our book is to encourage readers to grow and consume certain types of legumes
that have been neglected in recent decades. It is also addressed to producers interested in sus-
tainable farming, consumers trying to navigate environmental and health issues, and all pro-
fessionals who come into contact with food systems or gastronomy in the course of their work.

The 5 projects funded under RUR-06-2020 and RUR-07-2020 calls, started a close collaboration practically from the beginning of their activities, in November 2020 following the Topic requirement “To maximize impact across Europe and to ensure wide dissemination of the project results, proposals should foresee a dedicated work package for cooperation with other selected projects under topic RUR-06-2020 and earmark appropriate resources. Cooperation with other selected projects under topic RUR-07-2020 is encouraged”.

Gain access to the CO-FRESh toolkit. Includes the Key Exploitable Results Characterisation Template, Cost Benefit Analysis Template, Business Model Template and Instructions, Porter's Five Forces Analysis Tool and the Innovation Management Survey.

In this deliveravle D6.5, the second batch of EIP-Agri Practice Abstracts are included. In total, this deliverable contains 31 unique Practice Abstracts in native and English language.

Speaker: Lucia Vannini

The main goal is to valorise citrus by-products into food ingredients with technological or functional properties. For this aim a strategy based on mild technologies and fermentation exploiting metabolic traits of GRAS (Generally Recognized As Safe) yeasts and lactic acid bacteria is designed through the collaboration with the project partners Le Terre di Zoe and CNTA, along with their potential applications as valuable ingredients in food-based products. 

Speaker: Theocharis Moysiadis

Digital technologies and the Internet of Things can simplify data acquisition along the food value chain with a critical role to play during farming. Data-based irrigation can significantly lower the environmental footprint of small and medium scale farmers while optimised fertilisation/fertigation plans can have a big economic impact as well.

Speaker : Inés Echeverría

The meat alternative protein trend continues to boom. Legumes (faba beans among them) have been postulated to have a high-quality protein. In the CO-FRESH project, FoodValley (project partner), in collaboration with CNTA, will develop a fermented product that is traditionally made from soybeans, using the local Dutch legume Faba beans. 

Speaker: Frederic Flore

Our main goal in the CO-FRESH French pilot is to improve and develop local pig feed in « Le Porc de la Sarthe » for PGI (Protected Geographical Indication) production. Previous technical experimentations with farmers led us to the conclusion that all the actors of the chain value have to be included in the process. That is the reason why we are currently developing a software as a governance tool for LPS PGI.

Speaker: Inés Echeverría

Short summary: The CO-FRESH project aims to provide techniques, tools and insights on how to make agri-food value chains more environmentally sustainable, socio-economically balanced and economically competitive. At M30 (March 2023), 19 innovations in the 7 Pilot cases are being implemented. In this conference, the present situation and the main results are presented.

Deliverable 1.2. presents a list of value chains and a data-set on the characteristics of the identified sustainable, innovative and competitive agrifood value chains. This list is the results of a participatory inventory led by WUR and involving all the CO-FRESH consortium partners.

Task 1.1. presents a review of the academic and grey literature on innovative and sustainable agri-food value chains in Fruits & Vegetables and other crops. The review focusses on identifying the drivers and constraints of successful integration of technological innovation with social, organisational, managerial and institutional changes that support and facilitate sustainability outcomes. The review explicitly pays attention to collaboration in agri-food value chains and how different models of collaboration contribute to sustainability-oriented innovation.

This report presents a preliminary framework that complements the classical Triple Bottom Line operationalization of sustainability with a model that focuses on the collaboration needed for generating sustainability-oriented innovations. This framework has been named the CO-FRESH Sustainability-oriented Innovation COllaboration (SICO) framework.

In this deliverable D1.4, the researchers propose a portfolio of 20 innovative, sustainable, and competitive business models in agri-food value chains, considering the three pillars of successful companies’ value creation and capture strategies: a) value proposition, b) collaboration dynamics and c) firms’ dynamic capabilities. These BMs were selected, on the basis of the inventory of value chains that have implemented sustainability-oriented innovations (Task 1.2 and Task 1.3), and with a special attention to the models that strengthen farmers’ position and that involve producer organizations, family businesses, and SMEs.

Sustainability in the agri-food sector is essential to ensure reduced pressure on natural resources and good living conditions in rural areas (FAO, 2014). Achieving this objective largely depends on the constant introduction of innovation along the whole agri-food chain (OECD, 2019). Public policies can play a forefront role in this regard (OECD, 2021). However, although many studies and reviews focused on the issues at farm level, little is still explored regarding the impact of public policies on agri-food chains as a whole (Uthes & Matzdorf, 2013).

This deliverable contains the first batch (12 of the promised 5 - 15) of EIP-AGRI practice abstracts.

The objective of this deliverable is to provide the common framework that will be used in each Pilot Case to rank the potential list of innovations that could be implement in the demonstration phase (WP3). The framework is based in a Co-creation activity with active engagement of stakeholders in each Value Chain (Pilot Case). The framework consists of a two-step procedure: a participatory Workshop followed by a Delphi Technique in which information will be gathered by an Analytical Hierarchical Process.