Throughout the 2nd semester of the project, the MED food TTHubs team worked intensively to lay the foundation of the MED Food TTHubs e-platform for traceability and authenticity control, within the scope of “WP2: Critical analysis and requirements analysis of traceability and authenticity control system”. To realise its ambition and maximise the platform’s potential, the consortium analysed key stakeholders’ requirements, defining the needs and preferences of our end-users from this early stage of the project. Placing the users at the centre of our design process and leveraging on the collected insights, is fundamental to ensure enhanced quality of work and improved user satisfaction.
With that in mind and to appropriately account for all the different levels across the whole agro-food supply chain, several research methods were combined, involving both qualitative and quantitative data.
As a first step, a targeted desk research was performed reviewing relevant studies, reports and papers with the scope of collecting meaningful insights into the Mediterranean agro-food traceability system. In particular, attention has mainly been placed on the current state of agro-food chain structures, traceability and authenticity processes.
On the basis of these evidence and preliminary literature’s results, several Focus Group meeting were held in the participating countries aiming to gather valuable feedback on general issues concerning Med Food TTHubs key outcomes, such as the needs for a traceability system or the implementation of an e-platform. During the meetings, group dialogue among the actors from academia, government, and food industry, generated rich information, as participants’ insights “triggered” the sharing of others’ personal experiences and perspectives. The focus of the discussions was mainly posed on the preferences, expectations and familiarity of end-users with regard to agro-food traceability systems.
In parallel, key issues and the main literature review findings were further explored by means of an online survey. This last step, allowed MED Food TTHubs to dig deeper into the end-users’ opinions, preferences and expectations, offering a clear identification of the most and least favoured characteristics that the traceability e-platform should provide.
The active participation of a large number of key stakeholders and future end-users of the MED Food TTHubs e-platform have effectively contributed to the findings of our activities, helping us to shed light on the preferences and needs of the MED Food TTHubs end-users. The analysis carried out outlined a descriptive framework of the agro-food chain extremely varied that passes through culturally and legislative different nations with needs and requirements that take into account regional characteristics but aim, at the same time, at a context of integration and sharing. The e-platform’s requirements reflect these differences and similarities, highlighting how the need for a unique traceability Platform is a deeply felt need and of primary importance for all the nations involved.
WP2 and its various activities had been completed at the end of February (M11), and the above-mentioned analysis is summarised in the D2.2 “Requirement analysis report”, which will be available on this website soon! The gathered insights and recommendations are standing now to inform our future activities, setting the premises for the next project’s steps!