Focus Group Meeting for Tunisia

This is the time of Tunisian Focus Group meetings! The meetings during which the local team can present the MED Food TTHubs project and shed light on the current state of the local agro-food supply-chain and its traceability challenges in collaboration with the Tunisian so-called Quadruple Helix Stakeholders – that is people from academia, the industry, public authorities and civil society.

On 5 October 2020, the local team gather its Focus Group participants in Tunis. Dr. Fatma Trabelsi together with Dr. Achouak Arfaoui (ESIM, Tunisia) met with representatives from three governmental organisations highly involved in the agri-food sector in Tunisia:

• Eng. Sana Jaballah, Director at the Technical Center of Agro-industry (CTAA);
• Eng. Najeh Ben Ammar, responsible for the Fruit Quality service at the Professional Group of Fruits (GIF);
• Eng. Abdelmoumen Toukebri, Director of Partnership and Quality Promotion at the Agency for Promotion of Agricultural Investments (APIA).

In each of the three meetings held, an overview of the Med Food TTHubs project was presented with focus on project’s goals and main activities, notably the implementation of Trace & Trust Hubs as one-stop-shops for food traceability and authenticity in the different Mediterranean participant countries as well as the electronic platform. In addition, the importance of the Focus Group and its expected role were explained. The participant interlocutors expressed their interest and willingness to support the Med Food project by joining the focus group.

More specifically, Eng. Sana Jaballah (CTAA) ensured the project could profit from the expertise and the network of her institution in the field of agro-industry. With Eng. Najeh Ben Ammar (GIF), the discussion focused on similar projects she is coordinating currently concerning the traceability of figs of Djebba and pomegranate of Testour. She indicated the possibility of having synergies between the different projects in order to exchange ideas and experiences. Finally, in our meeting with Eng. Abdelmoumen Toukebri (APIA), the interlocutor stressed on the importance of such projects to promote the regional development in Tunisia, especially in the North-Western area of the country. He suggested our work to focus on the cherry of Bargou, which presents excellent gustative qualities and has a high potential to obtain the controlled-origin label in the future.

Keep following the page to find out more about our future activities in Portugal.

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