Developing wild berry business to boost local economy and social cohesion

Current situation requiring improvements

  • Wild berry refining industry is underdeveloped, as wholesalers prefer to export.
  • There’s a reliance on foreign labour for picking.

Main activities in FAIRCHAIN

  • Development of an ICT tool to map and help detect the location of wild berries to facilitate picking by the local population
  • Development of local berry cleaning and sorting companies and industrial regional processing companies

Progress to date

  • Development of an innovative application to identify areas with high berry yields, encouraging local picking, and demonstrating its effectiveness in real conditions
  • Test implementation by creating a system demonstrator called “Bär i bygden” (eng. Berries in the region) together with local stakeholders in the Bjurholm municipality
  • Organisation of a social berry festival to promote local berry products and engage the community in the municipality of Bjurholm
  • Organisation of workshops with stakeholders from across the value chain to co-create ideas for testing and implementing the app tool and business model
  • Contribution to the establishment of a Nordic research conference, an international food hack and a regional homepage dedicated to berries, fostering knowledge sharing and collaboration
  • Contribution to the formation of two new organisations that will test new components of an intermediate value chain. These organisations will serve as a demonstration or proof-of-concept to validate the feasibility and effectiveness of the desired new intermediate value chain. 
FAIRCHAIN creates a berry festival

FAIRCHAIN creates a berry festival

Today, the forest berry value chain is long and international. Local berry picking and processing have almost disappeared and have instead been replaced by foreign berry pickers in collaboration with large wholesalers. There is a national market for forest berries,...

Focus on European blueberries

Focus on European blueberries

Also known as European blueberries, Swedish blåbär is the most abundant berry in Sweden. They’re not the same as their North American counterparts; European blueberries are slightly smaller, have less sugar and are a deep crimson color inside. European blueberry...