Summary report: “Terms and development opportunities for small-scale food industries in the Danish rural areas”
Reasons for success
What turns small-scale food production into a success? That issue was a major reason for initiating this study. The answer can help make it easier to point out how food production can become an even stronger factor in development of rural areas and future contribution to employment, income, settlement and tourism. The following quite significant success factors were found:
Idea and passion
The entrepreneurs, business owners and employees are very passionate about taste, food development and food quality. Overall, they bring valuable knowledge and experience from many different previous occupations and industries, of which some are very far from the traditional food industries. The main drivers for them are the desire to help with freshness, authenticity, sustainability, transparency of ingredients and production processes, reduction of food waste etc.
Courage and pragmatism
The business owners are judiciously risk-oriented. Although most of them do not have a business plan and are ready to take chances, they do have goals for where they want to go. They are brave but not foolhardy, and pragmatism is reflected in the fact that they grow in line with earnings, and that they do not put everything on the line. Many have had a long start-up period with another job alongside. Some want growth and are working on it while others want to maintain a small scale.
Cooperation and openness
The companies are very collaborative. They create alliances with suppliers, dealers and customers not just in their local area, but also much broader in Denmark and abroad. It is particularly useful for product development and marketing to build mutually beneficial relationships with hip and media accustomed chefs and food intermediaries. Food networks are of great importance for some of the companies in the survey, but not for everyone.
Business models
Jobs, earnings and development can be created in many ways. The study identifies 11 business models, i.e. characteristics of the way in which a company creates value by using its available resources, through processing and changes of material and knowledge and through the use of contacts to the market.
The 11 identified business models are:
All food is experiences
- Where food and customer involvement is designed closely together in a unified concept
Recycling and upcycling
- Where sustainability and the environment is included actively and innovative.
Born “glocal”
- Where the small scale is not an obstacle in entering the export markets, but where the local brand is still important (Global and Local)
Strategic outsourcing and insourcing
- Where the company rethinks its role in the value chain and enters in new forms of co-operations
Old fashioned in the cool way
- Where authenticity is rethought
The brand
- Where the company places its products efficiently in customers' consciousness and subconsciousness
VIP club
- Where niche markets are serviced in close interaction with the customer
Symbiosis with social goals
- Where advantages are achieved through ethically based partnerships
Cooperation with the active “prosumer”
- Where the customer not just buys the product, but also works for the company (Producer and Consumer)
Growth by franchising
- Where growth is rolled out through strong, reproducible and scalable concepts.
The report (in Danish) can be downloaded at: