NAME: HOUSE OF FOOD FRANKFURT
INITIATOR: Anna-Mara Schön
LOCATION: Germany
SUMMARY: To enable short food supply chains, we need to redesign processes. A key element is to cut out middlemen and keep supply chains as short and simple as possible. In our region (Hesse, Germany) we started working on. We assume that it is washing and maybe cutting vegetables, peeling potatoes, threshing pulses and milling cereals. Animal products (milk, meat, eggs) are usually too expensive, to begin with, so our focus will probably be on plant foods. This project and founded the House of Food Frankfurt. In order to bring farmers and canteens around the table and into a dialogue to learn from each other, we are planning a summer event. This event has to be well planned and excellent marketing tools have to be created and used, so people get interested and show up. At this summer event, we want to find out which main processing services are necessary to really bring more regional products into out-of-home catering.
WHAT ARE THE MAIN INNOVATIVE ASPECTS?The main innovative aspects of the House of Food Frankfurt are fostering collaboration among stakeholders throughout the value chain, enhancing understanding of individual supply chain stages, and cultivating awareness and willingness to engage with each other. We bring people together, for example through informal meetings, so that they start talking to each other instead of about each other.
WHAT IS THE POTENTIAL TO CONNECT FARMERS AND CONSUMERS?As part of our approach, we establish a direct connection between employees as well as out-of-home catering guests. We also plan to organize excursions and visits to farms for employees and guests of canteens and similar facilities.
WHAT ARE THE MAIN OBSTACLES?Main obstacles include getting processors involved, which require high product quality and various certifications, and convincing out-of-home food service operations to use less pre-processed products. While there is a lot of enthusiasm for our initiatives and projects, it is difficult to get firm commitments from out-of-home catering companies for specificpilot projects.
House of Food Frankfurt is part of the Food Policy Council Frankfurt: