Eating the Wild: Improving the value-chain of Mediterranean Wild Food Products, also known as the Wildfood Project, aims to promote the implementation of joint innovative strategies for wild food products (WFP) in the Mediterranean. It seeks to do this by involving different actors of the WFP value-chain in the Mediterranean area, focusing on selected products (mushrooms, truffles, pine nuts & Aleppo pine seeds, aromatic plants, acorns and berries) in view of improving their quality, safety controls and sustainability.
First contacts with the producers of wild food products have been made across the Mediterranean since Wildfood held its kick-off meeting in June. The project is currently collecting relevant data from producers in order to analyse the state-of-the-art of the WFP value-chain, as well as to map relevant actors. Data collection will be done in part through a survey on certification and labelling needs, which has already been disseminated among stakeholders.
The analysis of the survey will contribute to the selection of several cases in different countries for the implementation of pilot projects to adopt and integrate certification and labelling innovations for the products. The second project management meeting is scheduled for early November.
The Forest Science and Technology Centre of Catalonia (CTFC) is the coordinator of the project, which has 9 partners from the Mediterranean area: The Promotora d’Exportacions Catalanes (PRODECA) from Spain, the Università di Padova – Dipartimento Territorio e Sistemi Agro-forestali (UNIPD) from Italy, the Instituto Superior de Agronomia (ISA) and Cooperativa de Usuarios do Freixo do Meio, CRL (HFM) from Portugal, the National Research Institute of Rural Engineering, Water and Forests (INRGREF) and Agriculture Extension and Training Agency (AVFA) from Tunisia, the Institut National de Recherche Forestière (INRF) and NABATIA from Algeria, and the Slovenian Forestry Institute (SFI) from Slovenia.
Wildfood is funded by the PRIMA initiative for research and innovation in the Mediterranean area. It aims to implement joint research and innovation policies under a common strategy of all participating countries to address challenges such as water scarcity, agriculture and food security.
Wildfood responds to the challenges of the PRIMA Initiative by enhancing the integration of the main actors of WFP value-chains in Mediterranean PRIMA communities. Furthermore, Wildfood implements planning and management control systems to improve quality, safety and sustainability, thus addressing challenges such as food losses, slow-responding safety systems, uneven market distribution and low performance in the utilisation of natural resources.
Since its first kick-off meeting in June, the Wildfood Project has worked to make initial contact with the producers of wild food products across the Mediterranean. The project is currently collecting relevant data from producers in order to analyse the state-of-the-art of the WFP value-chain, as well as to map relevant actors. Data collection will be done in part through a survey on certification and labelling needs, which has already been disseminated among stakeholders.
The analysis of the survey will contribute to the selection of several cases in different countries for the implementation of pilot projects to adopt and integrate certification and labelling innovations for the products. The second project management meeting is scheduled for early November.
Keep up to date on Wildfood developments on the project website!
