Even a year later, COVID-19 restrictions continue affecting our lives. The good news is that despite that this strange and surreal period finds most of us hunkered down in our home offices, travel bans and the urgent need for self-isolation aren’t hindering progress of the MED Food TTHubs project – nor our ability to effectively engage when we need to. Thus, MED Food TTHubs partners e-met once again with growing excitement to reflect on their achievements so far, focusing also on the best way forward for the upcoming months!
Since virtual meetings have become our daily life, and as the circumstances did not allow physical meetings in our pilot areas, our 3rd project meeting was organised and performed virtually on the 12th of April 2021, coinciding also with the closure of the first year of the project’s implementation phase. During the event, representatives from the 10 consortium partners had the opportunity not only to exchange knowledge on the work done so far under their respective WPs, but also to deliberate on the results. CERTH, as the project coordinator, started the meeting by providing the overview of the project’s status and informing all partners about the progress achieved. Furthermore, current and future challenges were discussed, alongside possible mitigation actions.
Thereafter, each WP Leader presented the work undertaken throughout the 2nd semester as well as the key findings of these efforts. More specifically, our colleagues from University of Patras, CERTH and Universidad Politécnica de Madrid took the floor and explained how the authentication, nutritional and quality analysis of the selected Mediterranean agri-food products are currently running without problems, and they also provided a concrete plan concerning the development of a full-path traceability system. Then, Green Projects proceeded with a detailed presentation of how WP4, which is responsible to the MED Food TTHubs e-platform’s development, interacts with the other WPs and introduced the initial architecture of the platform. In turn, TECNOALIMENTI S.C.p.A. discussed about the creation of the stakeholders and end-users community, focusing on the engagement activities performed, the training material that is going to be developed as well as the assessment methodologies that will be applied within the following period. Higher School of Engineers of Medjez El Bab set the premises for the design of our pilots’ activities. As such, a very important point was raised regarded our pilots’ design and the selection of the testing use-cases. Since the whole agri-food supply chain lies in the heart of the MED Food TTHubs concept, the partners discussed a range of options on how to implement and test the MED Food TTHubs full-path traceability system while at the same time offering the most to local participants and agri-food markets. Stay tuned! More updates are expected on this front soon!
Then, Jordan University of Science & Technology took the lead and talked about the necessary framework for the development of commercially viable models of MED Food TTHubs. Arab Academy for Science & Technology & Maritime Transport concluded the round and walked us through the communication actions of WP8, presenting also the dissemination performance of the project. Special attention was paid to synergies with related projects and participation in external events. Finally, the floor was given again to CERTH to discuss a concrete action plan for the next semester, to ensure that our efforts are orchestrated towards our common goal: establishing the MED Food TTHubs traceability ecosystem in the Mediterranean agri-food sector.MED Food TTHubs is ready to start dynamically the new year ahead! Soon, key stakeholders and end-user form the whole agri-food supply chain will be able to test our platform and traceability protocols and help us to improve them, thus making MED Food TTHubs a credible traceability system in the Mediterranean agri-food market. Until our next project meeting, stay tuned and check regularly our website or social media to be the first to know about our upcoming news and events!