The Packaging Cluster promotes the “Safe Smart Food” project to generate exchanges between companies at European level

Submitted by Serena Rebollo… on 19 February 2020

Safe Smart Food is a European project, within the COSME Program, created to improve the services of the participating clusters, both at the consortium level and at the individual level

Recently, the Cluster Manager of Packaging ClusterÀlex Brossa Enrique, has traveled to Brussels to presente the kick-off of the Excellence Programme “Safe Smart Food” to the European Clusters Collaboration Platform (ECCP) and the Executive Agency for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (EASME). As project coordinators, framed in the call for grants from the COSME Program, we lead the consortium with the objective of fostering collaboration between clusters, improving management capacity and creating a favorable ecosystem for the agri-food sector.

In addition to the Packaging Cluster as coordinating figure of the project, the consortium is formed by other clusters from Spain, Lithuania, Latvia and Austria: Cluster Foodservice of CataloniaLietuvos Maisto Eksportuotoju Asociacija (LITMEA) from Lithuania, Latvijas Partikas Uznemumu Federacija from Latvia and the Business Upper Austria – OO WIRTSCHAFTSAGENTUR GMBH from Austria.

The Safe Smart Food project was created with the intention of promoting the internationalization of the associated clusters and their member companies, in addition to improving their situation through networking conferences, specific training or activities that allow maximum excellence and quality of the services offered. Therefore, the needs of the market and the challenges to be faced from the packaging and food sector will be analyzed.

SMEs will rise as the main protagonists of the benefit provided by the project, as the program will focus on its development and competitiveness. The nature of this call is, therefore, multisectoral and multi-stakeholders, which means that it will have numerous agents involved in achieving the objectives. The purpose is to create a network of contacts that nourishes the consortium with innovations of the country of origin and feed back with all the knowledge that is shared in the meetings that are held, presenting success stories that can enrich the strategic change of the clusters, individually and as a consortium.

The total budget for the Safe Smart Food is 456,623 € with a contribution of 347,467 € by the European Union and 20 months to carry out the task. The needs of SMEs and the stakeholders involved will be analyzed, as well as the final consumers, to offer services more aligned with the strategic trends of the sector, such as food security or lack of added value in the products in question. Subsequently, a 5-year strategy will be established to develop an implementation program of the improvements taken from the study, in line with the consortium’s strategy. The tools to reach it are: innovation, internationalization, networking, sustainability and C2C conferences.

This initiative provides for more than 50 exchanges between the different members of the European Clusters, which will improve the cluster tool individually and collectively. And it will offer a solution that guarantees healthy and quality food, with a package that takes care of the environmental impact it generates – ecodesign – and optimizes resources, both at state and European level.

Cluster organisation
Share this Article