Periodic Reporting for period 3 - CO-FRESH (CO-creating sustainable and competitive FRuits and vEgetableS’ value cHains in Europe)
Reporting period: 2023-04-01 to 2024-03-31
CO-FRESH, an EU-funded Horizon 2020 innovation action project, aims to promote sustainable and efficient agri-food value chains through concrete actions and approaches. Over 42 months (starting 01/10/20) with a 7.5 M euro budget, the project brought together key actors from agri-food value chains, actors’ associations, and experts in technological and non-technological solutions, environmental and social science, economic sustainability, and consumer acceptance. Agri-food value chains face systemic challenges. Due to low margins, locational inflexibility, and weak bargaining power, these trends challenge all value chain actors, particularly farmers. However, increased coordination in agri-food value chains has improved food safety tracking, logistics, consumer responsiveness, and innovation, offering opportunities to enhance sustainability and competitiveness. CO-FRESH has developed techniques, tools, and insights for redesigning agri-food value chains based on best practices and key success factors. These have been applied in 7 pilot cases representing diverse European fruit and vegetable value chains (including protein crops for food and feed). The project used the Intervention Research approach to study collective innovation action models within and across organizations.
The project has been successfully implemented and met the KPIs and objectives proposed. All pilot cases have implemented or plan to implement some of the innovations developed, indicating a clear example of success. Additional achievements include:
- The SICO framework, which integrates ‘Collaboration’ as a key axis in developing and evaluating Sustainable Oriented Innovations (SOIs).
- The co-creation methodology, which integrated actors along the entire fruit and vegetable value chain in pilot cases, creating a positive working climate for defining and selecting innovations. This was evident in the implementation and demonstration work and the final Pilot Case Working Group meetings.
- Intense and fruitful collaboration between the 5 Sister projects (FOODRUS, PLOUTOS, LOWINFOOD, FAIRCHAIN and CO-FRESH), which reached a broader audience, especially key agri-food chain actors, than each project could have achieved alone.
The project has been successfully implemented and met the KPIs and objectives proposed. All pilot cases have implemented or plan to implement some of the innovations developed, indicating a clear example of success. Additional achievements include:
- The SICO framework, which integrates ‘Collaboration’ as a key axis in developing and evaluating Sustainable Oriented Innovations (SOIs).
- The co-creation methodology, which integrated actors along the entire fruit and vegetable value chain in pilot cases, creating a positive working climate for defining and selecting innovations. This was evident in the implementation and demonstration work and the final Pilot Case Working Group meetings.
- Intense and fruitful collaboration between the 5 Sister projects (FOODRUS, PLOUTOS, LOWINFOOD, FAIRCHAIN and CO-FRESH), which reached a broader audience, especially key agri-food chain actors, than each project could have achieved alone.
Over the project, the planned work was carried out in five steps:
1st Develop Situation & Frameworks: Conducted a literature review and collected data on over 100 agri-food value chains in Europe, developing a framework and indicators for sustainability, innovativeness, and competitiveness. Identified 20 innovative and sustainable business models.
2nd Specify Program Structures and Processes: Designed interventions to be tested in each pilot case. Using a co-creation methodology, 203 innovations were identified in the 7 Pilot Cases, with 19 selected for testing.
3rd Implement & Refine Interventions: Created implementation plans for each of the 19 innovations to test their impact on sustainability and efficiency through intervention studies.
4th Test Effectiveness: Completed baseline reports and defined data collection and monitoring indicators to validate the innovative value chains from environmental, socio-economic, and consumer perspectives.
5th Disseminate Findings: Developed a strategy for exploiting project results and a C&D plan. Established networking with other H2020 projects and thematic networks for cooperation and joint feedback to policy.
The Innovation Committee monitored results along the project, identifying, on top of the 19 pilot case innovations, 11 other results (new services to be developed, results interesting from an academic point of view or the certification mark o business model toolkit)
Key exploitable results include Innovations in the Pilot Cases:
- IoT ferti-irrigation systems reducing water and fertilizer use.
- Biodegradable packaging for better preservation of ready-to-eat fruits and vegetables.
- New plant-based products with sustainable branding.
- Probiotic technologies for superior composting of orchard residues.
- New recipes for vegetables in the HORECA sector.
- Healthy zero-waste boxes to minimize food losses.
Additional KERs include a certification mark for food products with mitigated microplastic release and new services for developing sustainable products and processes in F&V value chains.
To maximize impact, a Business Model Toolkit was developed for stakeholders along the agri-food value chain and disseminated to over 150 stakeholders outside CO-FRESH.
Dissemination activities included:
- Producing over 20 videos, including a final project video.
- Submitting 100 Practice Abstracts to EIP-AGRI and the Sustainable Food System Innovation Platform.
- Presenting CO-FRESH at 24 large fairs, 38 conferences, 27 workshops, and 27 external meetings.
- Hosting 8 multi-actor workshops in various countries, with over 440 participants.
- Publishing over 100 online articles, 8 newsletters, and 3 short communications.
- Presenting at scientific conferences, resulting in 12 open-access scientific articles, with 2 more under review.
Collaboration between 5 Sister Projects (RUR-06 & 07-2020) reached a wider audience than each project could alone. A joint event in Brussels on October 2023, analyzed three years of cooperation, debated lessons learned with REA Project Officers and EC Policy Officer and identified best practices to maximize project impact.
1st Develop Situation & Frameworks: Conducted a literature review and collected data on over 100 agri-food value chains in Europe, developing a framework and indicators for sustainability, innovativeness, and competitiveness. Identified 20 innovative and sustainable business models.
2nd Specify Program Structures and Processes: Designed interventions to be tested in each pilot case. Using a co-creation methodology, 203 innovations were identified in the 7 Pilot Cases, with 19 selected for testing.
3rd Implement & Refine Interventions: Created implementation plans for each of the 19 innovations to test their impact on sustainability and efficiency through intervention studies.
4th Test Effectiveness: Completed baseline reports and defined data collection and monitoring indicators to validate the innovative value chains from environmental, socio-economic, and consumer perspectives.
5th Disseminate Findings: Developed a strategy for exploiting project results and a C&D plan. Established networking with other H2020 projects and thematic networks for cooperation and joint feedback to policy.
The Innovation Committee monitored results along the project, identifying, on top of the 19 pilot case innovations, 11 other results (new services to be developed, results interesting from an academic point of view or the certification mark o business model toolkit)
Key exploitable results include Innovations in the Pilot Cases:
- IoT ferti-irrigation systems reducing water and fertilizer use.
- Biodegradable packaging for better preservation of ready-to-eat fruits and vegetables.
- New plant-based products with sustainable branding.
- Probiotic technologies for superior composting of orchard residues.
- New recipes for vegetables in the HORECA sector.
- Healthy zero-waste boxes to minimize food losses.
Additional KERs include a certification mark for food products with mitigated microplastic release and new services for developing sustainable products and processes in F&V value chains.
To maximize impact, a Business Model Toolkit was developed for stakeholders along the agri-food value chain and disseminated to over 150 stakeholders outside CO-FRESH.
Dissemination activities included:
- Producing over 20 videos, including a final project video.
- Submitting 100 Practice Abstracts to EIP-AGRI and the Sustainable Food System Innovation Platform.
- Presenting CO-FRESH at 24 large fairs, 38 conferences, 27 workshops, and 27 external meetings.
- Hosting 8 multi-actor workshops in various countries, with over 440 participants.
- Publishing over 100 online articles, 8 newsletters, and 3 short communications.
- Presenting at scientific conferences, resulting in 12 open-access scientific articles, with 2 more under review.
Collaboration between 5 Sister Projects (RUR-06 & 07-2020) reached a wider audience than each project could alone. A joint event in Brussels on October 2023, analyzed three years of cooperation, debated lessons learned with REA Project Officers and EC Policy Officer and identified best practices to maximize project impact.
During the last year of the project, the “innovative value chain” has been compared to baseline assessment, in order to assess the sustainability performance of several innovations for the 7 pilot cases of CO-FRESH: clementine juice (TerreDiZoe) Italy, baby lettuce (Florette) Spain, faba bean-based meat analogues (Foodvalley) the Netherlands, dry sausage with pork meat fed with local proteins (LPS) France, biological apples (Ekoowoc) Poland, oyster mushrooms (Pilze-Nagy) Hungary and classic healthy box (Coexphal) Spain.
In general, the selected innovations have not had a significant effect on reducing the environmental impact of the value chain: although none of the innovations led to an increase of environmental impacts, several innovations did not lead to a decrease of environmental impact either. From a socio- economic point of view, it is worth stressing that the nature of some innovations would lead to mid and long-term socio-economic impacts rather than an immediate impact. From a consumer perspective: different types of innovations (i.e. marketing, organizational, product, and process innovations) have been implemented. The results indicate that all types of innovation yield positive purchase intentions and product attitudes, especially marketing and organizational innovations. Comparing the different types of innovations implemented, the results indicate that marketing innovations cause the most positive consumer responses. Interestingly, the results imply that consumers tend to favour innovations which are characterized by rather low levels of innovativeness, less innovation-related risks, and a relatively low complexity. Furthermore, marketing innovations stand out as the most favourable type of innovation regarding most of the outcome variables of interest (e.g. purchase intentions, product sustainability perception, product health benefits, etc.). This finding stresses the importance of (food) innovations that are easy to understand and are communicated in the voice of the customer result in most favourable outcomes.
In general, the selected innovations have not had a significant effect on reducing the environmental impact of the value chain: although none of the innovations led to an increase of environmental impacts, several innovations did not lead to a decrease of environmental impact either. From a socio- economic point of view, it is worth stressing that the nature of some innovations would lead to mid and long-term socio-economic impacts rather than an immediate impact. From a consumer perspective: different types of innovations (i.e. marketing, organizational, product, and process innovations) have been implemented. The results indicate that all types of innovation yield positive purchase intentions and product attitudes, especially marketing and organizational innovations. Comparing the different types of innovations implemented, the results indicate that marketing innovations cause the most positive consumer responses. Interestingly, the results imply that consumers tend to favour innovations which are characterized by rather low levels of innovativeness, less innovation-related risks, and a relatively low complexity. Furthermore, marketing innovations stand out as the most favourable type of innovation regarding most of the outcome variables of interest (e.g. purchase intentions, product sustainability perception, product health benefits, etc.). This finding stresses the importance of (food) innovations that are easy to understand and are communicated in the voice of the customer result in most favourable outcomes.