Primary challenge owner: City of Groningen
Secondary challenge owner(s): RGA and Westerkwartier
Regional food systems and short supply chains are a way to shape the transition to circular agriculture and create new revenue models. This allows us to encourage the development of agricultural products and concepts with higher added value, and to strengthen the connection between farmers and citizens. Additional benefits include the reliability of origin, fewer transport miles and the fact that it’s better for our environment and countryside.
The Dutch National Government wants to help entrepreneurs double this short chain’s market turnover in the coming years. However, we still face a number of obstacles. Consumers are not always able to find this type of product and there is little public awareness of it. Also, the supply is not uniform, partly because there is no good logistics system yet.
How can we remove these barriers so that more locally produced food can be available to citizens and entrepreneurs to increase revenues? Where are market opportunities waiting for entrepreneurs? What facilities are needed to actually double market revenue? And what is the government’s role in this? It’s not just about direct delivery from local food producers to consumers in the region. There can also be a processing step in between, such as a company that uses local agricultural products to make a product for the (regional) consumer market, such as ‘The smallest soup factory’ from Leek. Or, for example, a healthcare institution that prepares meals for its clients with regional products.
‘How can we ensure that a greater proportion of locally produced food is also consumed locally?’
