Fourth Reframe Report: general overview of our progress
For the Reframe partners there is not just an economic rationale behind these efforts: it also helps to secure or create employment, to protect the landscape and to foster a more sustainable regional economy.
The sustainability approach becomes more important in the project and will probably lead to new innovation support measures, smart specializations and policy declarations in the next period.
In this period Reframe realized new skills for food related SMEs, strengthened regional networks, influenced large scale consumers towards regional sourcing. In this the transnational exchange of knowledge and especially of inspiration became increasingly important.
Business models, best-practices, support measures and other Reframe results are shared through the Online Resource Center with partners, stakeholders and SMEs throughout the North Sea Region. As an essential first step in generating more users of these resources, the Reframe project and partners focused on a broader public awareness about the importance and potential of regional food.
Just over halfway the project, Reframe signals that in Groningen there is already a large political commitment to regional food, that SMEs are reporting their first increases in turnover and that an increasing number of new (or better equipped) SMEs deliver their innovative, regional products to the market.
These results are of course also possible because the organization of the project has improved further. The new German coordinating beneficiary Landkreis Wesermarsch gives new energy to the German partnership and to the project as a whole. We expect the Wesermarsch to start delivering results in the next period.
Also, the transnational communication team has picked up speed. With communication professionals from Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands this team both fires up partners to share their progress and disseminates Reframe results transnationally.
The results, outputs and deliverables realized so far have encouraged partners to think about extending the project, to fully use the potential unleashed so far and to further strengthen a sustainable, regional food sector.