Sabri Ülker Foundation Becomes Turkey Partner for agroBRIDGES Project

Sabri Ülker Vakfı became the Turkish partner of the agroBRIDGES Project, launched with the partnership of 15 institutions from different countries focusing on food, sustainability and technology, and financed by the European Union's Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Framework Programme. With the project, which will last a total of 36 months and be supported by technology-based applications, the aim is to develop sustainable business and marketing models based on Short Food Supply Chains to increase producers' income by minimizing intermediary margins. Sabri Ülker Vakfı, which carries out work to develop awareness of food, nutrition and healthy living, became the Turkish partner of the Horizon 2020 Project agroBRIDGES, which aims to build bridges between producers and consumers, empower farmers with practical knowledge, and strengthen their market positions through new business and marketing models based on Short Food Supply Chains (SFSC). The project, which will last a total of 36 months and has a budget of approximately EUR 3 million, is financed by the European Union's Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Framework Programme. The agroBRIDGES project, which has 15 institutions and civil society organizations from different countries in its consortium, will develop a multi-stakeholder and innovative agricultural food framework that brings together numerous stakeholders and practical support tools to create better connections between producers and consumers. Within this framework, it is planned to establish sustainable business and marketing models that use fewer intermediaries and are based on Short Food Supply Chains, and to create a more developed market dynamic for local producers. In the short term, the project will provide training to 150 people on how to mobilize food supply and innovative agricultural food supply chains and how to support local producers. In the long term, the aim is to contribute to an increase of 5 to 8 percent in the number of farms selling directly to consumers.  

Information and Communication Technology-based applications such as "decision support" tools will be used

In the project, whose first virtual meeting was held this week, a step beyond traditional support tools based mainly on facilitating communication and event organization will be taken, and Information and Communication Technology (ICT)-based tools and resources will be used. This will include decision support tools that can help producers choose more sustainable business models by comparing different scenarios or by creating producer networks to benefit from economies of scale. Within the project scope, these tools will be developed for different user groups such as producers, consumers, public bodies, local agri-food industry and distributors.  

More than 400 people will be able to exchange knowledge

The tools provided within the scope of the agroBRIDGES project will be comprehensively tested and validated through the project's multi-stakeholder framework, including 12 Multi-Stakeholder Platforms spread across 12 geographical regions of Europe. Thus, more than 400 people from the agri-food sector will be able to directly participate in knowledge exchange, co-creation and the process of jointly developing project outputs together with project partners. Within this framework, the expected impact of the project is to jointly develop new business and marketing models based on SFSC, which have the potential to significantly increase producers' income by minimizing intermediaries' margins.  

The project consortium consists of 15 partners

The project, which consists of a total of 15 partners and is led by Q-PLAN INTERNATIONAL (Greece), includes Sabri Ülker Vakfı from Turkey among its consortium partners, while other partners are TEAGASC - Agriculture and Food Development Authority (Ireland), FruitvegetablesEUROPE (Belgium), Teknologian tutkimuskeskus VTT Oy (Finland), Wageningen University (Netherlands), CREA - Council for Agricultural Research and Economics (Italy), Tralee Institute of Technology (Ireland), Food & Bio Cluster Denmark (Denmark), Fundación Corporación Tecnológica de Andalucía CTA (Spain), Unimos Foundation (Poland), VEGEPOLYS VALLEY (France), Rezos Brands Agrifood Company (Greece), Sustainable Innovations Europe (Spain) and Hub Madrid SL (Spain).