Over the last seven years, I’ve had the pleasure to work on various EU-funded research and innovation projects investigating the competitiveness, resilience and sustainability of agri-food supply chains and the identification of market strategies to improve how they function, writes Barbara Tocco, Senior Research Associate and Centre Manager.
For instance our Horizon-2020 project ‘Strength2Food’, coordinated from Newcastle University Business School and bringing together a large multi-actor consortium of 30 partners, looked at quality food markets and, specifically, at short food supply chains (SFSCs) as a tool to reconnect producers and consumers and ensure a more sustainable and just food system. As part of the project, we examined the social, economic and environmental impacts of SFSCs and developed good practices and recommendations for both practitioners and policy makers (see our Strategic Guide on SFSCs).
By the term SFSCs we mean ‘alternative’ and ‘local’ types of food networks (e.g. farmers’ markets, food hubs, box schemes etc.) which are typically characterised by a close geographical, social and organisational proximity between producers and consumers – and which often operate via direct producer-consumer relations, or a very limited number of intermediary actors.