Developing wild berry business to boost local economy and social cohesion
Sweden – led by Research Institutes of Sweden (RISE)
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.
Practice abstracts
Posters
FAIRCHAIN takes part in the Nordic Wildberry Conference
FAIRCHAIN was well represented at the Nordic Wildberry Conference, held in Umeå, Sweeden from 7 to 8 September, with four poster presentations summarising results of the project's Swedish Case Study, which seeks to develop digital applications and business models to...
A FAIRCHAIN ‘Food Hack’ will take place from 6 to 8 September 2023 in Umeå, Sweden
The FAIRCHAIN Food Hack will bring together students and instructors for an intensive 3-day session in which ideas for innovation all along the intermediate food supply chain are presented and refined. The focus will be on the local berry industry of Northern Sweden....
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
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...
Case study update: The FAIRCHAIN project is looking for berries
By: Roger Uddstål, RISE The forest berry value chain is long and international. In Sweden, local berry picking has almost disappeared and been replaced by foreign berry pickers in collaboration with large wholesalers. There is a local market for wild forest berries,...
Co-creation workshop for the Swedish case study
Participants representing the wild berry companies, public sector and universities come together to better understand the problems and opportunities of wild berry production in the north of Sweden, and set up goals for development of value chain. Visit the dedicated...