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.
