In the context of current crises and supply chain risks, Upper Rhine Sustainable Food aims to support food SMEs in the Upper Rhine region in their sustainable growth and competitiveness by developing cross-border food value chains for vegetarian meals. To this end, pilot projects are carried out at communal catering facilities such as schools and universities, which currently offer regional and organic food in varying proportions and could benefit from an improvement in local supply chains.

Overall, the project will be implemented in five steps:

First, the current state of the supply chains of canteens and retail outlets with regard to plant-based products and the actual potential to strengthen sustainable cross-border supply chains is examined.

Second, the project explores how these regional products can be made attractive and easily accessible to consumers in vegetarian dishes.

Third, the core challenges of the actual implementation, such as (fair) payment of actors in the supply chain and the attractiveness of the product to consumers, are addressed by adapting the communication plan for the vegetarian meal offering.

The fourth step focuses on the replicability of the pilot projects, based on comparisons between the experiments, on order to make the expanded implementation more efficient.

Finally, in the fifth step, all identified factors are evaluated and translated into strategic action plans for a broad implementation of the measures. Attention will be paid to the geographical and temporal transferability of the results.

All results achieved within the project will be made permanently accessible on the dissemination and innovation platform to support the process of implementing and sustaining sustainable business practices of SMEs, namely their impact on the economy, society, and the environment.

Project description at INTERREG: https://www.interreg-oberrhein.eu/projet/upper-rhine-sustainable-food-entwicklung-nachhaltiger-wertschoepfungsketten-fuer-vegetarische-mahlzeiten-in-kantinen-und-im-einzelhandel/