Provenance and Branding as Key to Resilient Agrifood

European and Australian regions are learning how important a focus on provenance is to building the resilience of agrifood systems. Amidst extensive global challenges arising from climate, changing customer preferences and major conflicts, a strong focus on the quality of local foods and demonstrating their provenance can maintain and strengthen access to markets.

This was demonstrated clearly in a webinar presented by representatives of Western Greece, Gippsland and Val d’Oise. Western Greece, for example, presented the ‘Olympian Breakfast’ where the vision is to create an authentic breakfast experience based on Western Greece’s local products and culinary traditions to support tourism and local development. The Olympian Breakfast is a branded regional offering aimed at tourists and hospitality, while also requiring participating producers to meet high local quality standards so the initiative supports agricultural production as well as tourism.

In Gippsland, partnerships are developing around ‘Gippsland Trusted’, a collaborative marketing platform and a system for capturing value through provenance, trust and transparency across local, domestic and international channels. The initiative is structured around three activities: strengthening local retail and hospitality supply chains, expanding into domestic agritourism and urban markets (starting with Melbourne and Sydney), and testing Gippsland Trusted as an origin mark for international markets. Digital traceability will be critical to proving provenance.

In Val d’Oise, ‘Innovalim 95’ has been designed as an annual Val-d’Oise agrifood innovation challenge combining local food traditions and innovation. The judging categories include: digital; ecological transition; Corporate Social Responsibility with emphasis on employment/apprenticeship; culinary; and a new design/customer-experience category. The event is primarily positioned as a marketing and local-promotion effort rather than a commercial procurement program.

Val d’Oise also shared the story of the Vexin Regional Natural Park, and its contribution to the Territorial Food Plan. The Park  supports agricultural chains, promoting farmers and local produce, and reconnecting rural land with local consumers.

The project has five major aims: strengthening territorial agriculture; promoting agroecology; creating local supply chains and logistics; developing local collective catering; and promoting equitable access, training and job creation in food professions. One example has been the park’s support for Les Moulins Familiaux with financial aid to build training capacity, a quality-control lab, and artisanal milling equipment for high-quality flour.