Building an innovative food chain for Rijk van Nijmegen en Lingewaard
In the Circular Council of RvN@, entrepreneurs, organizations, investors and knowledge institutions work together across municipal and sectoral boundaries to connect and develop initiatives in the areas of Smart & IT, Food & Health and Circular. For food and agriculture, the region has a lot to offer, but still lacks a cohesive framework on this playing field. That is why RvN@ has taken the initiative, together with the province Gelderland, municipalities of Nijmegen and Lingewaard, to commission an exploration of the opportunities for the region to work on sustainable food chains.
Challenge
Gelderland's Circular Economy program outlines goals for 2030, with Agrofood as a key sector. Good Growth Collective was tasked with providing tangible substance to the project focused on innovating food chains in Rijk van Nijmegen and Lingewaard in order to ensure that the region becomes a forerunner.
Setting up FoodWorld
In cooperation with RVN@, Rijk van Nijmegen and Lingewaard, Good Growth Collective set up, designed and supervised the Food World project. In the Food World project, local entrepreneurs, healthcare institutions, and educational organizations come together at a physical location to realize innovative food chains, offer educational institutions a research location in order to innovate and research their own products and services, sell locally produced food, benefit from each other's knowledge and network. The project consisted of several stages:
Stage 1: Identifying local entrepreneurs open to collaborating on the establishment of FoodWorld.
Stage 2: Establishing the business case: conducting a thorough competition analysis, market research, financial feasibility analysis, and risk and impact assessment.
Stage 3: Conducting additional research on elements like suitable location, legal form, collaboration possibilities, and a priority analysis of participating partners.
All findings will be presented during the Week of Circular Economy, which will take place from 11 until 16 march 2024. More details about the project can be found here.
Results
- A comprehensive document detailing both the financial and qualitative business case and results of the studies of suitable location, priority analysis, exploration of collaborations with healthcare and educational institutions. This document serves as a guide that entrepreneurs and initiators can utilize as a starting point when establishing a short circular food chain.
- A network of entrepeneurs, health care institutions, educational organisations and experts who wish to shorten food chains and produce and sell local food in an innovative and sustainable way in the regions of Nijmegen and Lingewaard.
*in-person meetings take place in our Amsterdam office on Warmoesstraat 149-151