The Sustainable Food System (SFS) Innovation Platform is a one-stop digital information shop!

– By Katherine Flynn and Sofia Reis (ISEKI-Food Association, IFA)

Are you involved in the food supply chain? Then the SFS Innovation Platform is for you! The SFS Innovation Platform is an online environment with information on many aspects of food system sustainability. There are publications, videos, deliverables, practice abstracts, e-learning courses, innovations, initiatives and more from SIXTEEN EU PROJECTS (and growing) on this single platform. EU4Advice, through WP5, is one of the Platform’s Managing Projects.

The Platform has six Inventories which may be browsed or searched, by criteria including language, project, end user, and others. Inventories include outputs from the 16 Platform projects, including some projects that are already finished, but whose work remains alive and accessible through the SFS Innovation Platform. The Platform also has a Training page with links to e-Learning courses from several projects, and a Community groups page with links to relevant LinkedIn groups and Communities of Practice.

The Platform is targeted at:  

  • Consumers looking for sustainable food in their area, 
  • Farmers & cooperatives, industry & retail looking to share their initiatives or boost their productivity based on recent innovations, 
  • Policy makers looking for practical summaries of project outputs, and 
  • Technology providers looking for innovations or to publicize their own.

The Platform itself is a best practice for wide and long-term impact. There are several hundred registered users and close to 1500 visitors per month. The average visitor spends five minutes on the platform and looks at more than six pages! 

The Platform is not a project and therefore it need not end. It can stay active after current projects end as long as new projects continue to join the Platform Managing Projects. Through EU4Advice, related projects including COREnet and EU Farmbook are now Platform Contributing Projects aligning with the EU4Advice goal of consolidating multi-actor networks. Representatives of the 16 EU projects using the Platform meet monthly to jointly decide the Platform’s goals.

Interested? EU projects are invited to join the Platform!  And individuals are invited to register! Stay connected to the SFS Innovation Platform to keep up with all the latest on innovative food systems.