Ethical Food Entrepreneurships

Today´s food production systems compromise the capacity of Earth to produce food in the future. Food production is exceeding environmental limits or is close to doing so. The food we produce and consume has a significant impact on the environment through greenhouse gas emissions, land and water resources, food waste etc. An important part of the green transition are our daily practices in food production, development, distribution, sales, marketing, and consumer food choices. Furthermore, even though we are in the EU, with adequate legislation regarding to food quality and safety, food fraud occurs by operators who do not follow ethical behavior in food production. The EFE concept initiates a global change by promoting the actors of the entire food chain in different parts of the world to take a leap in developing their knowledge and operations. In the EFE project, the partners contributed to the professional development of food HEI Educators by increasing their pedagogic skills to develop and teach new food entrepreneurship supports based on triple-bottom-line businesses (planet, people, profit). The project wanted to empower a new generation of food entrepreneurs to start, grow & adapt new ethical food enterprises.

The vision of the EFE project was to empower a new generation of food entrepreneurs to start, grow & adapt new ethical food enterprises that consider people, planet & profit. The project aimed to contribute to the professional development of food HEI Educators by increasing their pedagogic skills to develop and teach ethical entrepreneurship mindset which considers both the planet, people and profit. In more detail, the project was built to - empower HEI educators to commit to EFE innovative learning and teaching practices to tackle societal challenges, - upskill students as potential ethical food entrepreneurs and - empower SMEs and start-ups to breed innovative food concepts & thrive new businesses that EU needs. To reach above goals EFE aimed to develop unique training and teaching resources (including guides, an entrepreneurship manual, an online training course and peer-to-peer learning resources) for HEI/VET educators, students and SMEs at the food sector on how to grow an ethical food business in fulfilment of SDG 8 and SDG 10, enabling them to be drivers of equitable & sustainable growth and provide long-lasting benefits to industry players.

PR1: Educators Guide on Drivers for Innovation of Ethical Foods The project team produced a guide for HEI/VET educators on the drivers for innovation of ethical food. This guide describes the status on drivers and enablers of ethical food entrepreneurship. More than being an academic study, the guide serves also as a practical tool for educators including exercises that educators can implement in their classroom. The guide also includes links to further resources such videos and literature. To make this guide even more practically oriented, the project team published a compendium (A good practice guide) which showcases dozens of company cases from all partner countries. These company cases are categorized so that it is easy for the reader to find a case study which represents e.g. an ethical retailer or a company utilizing zero-waste principles. PR2: Entrepreneurship Manual on innovating ethical foods This manual was developed to be a thorough introduction for setting up a food business with ethical principles and targeted at students, potential entrepreneurs and current business owners. Based on scientific principles and best business practices, it was written to be accessible and relevant for users of various cultural backgrounds and experience levels. To achieve our objectives, the manual focused on a narrative explanation of the steps involved in an Ethical Food Enterprise start up, supported by examples of different entrepreneurial manifestations of ethical food entrepreneurship. Case studies demonstrating entrepreneurial approaches to ethical/clean practice business models were linked to make the principles and ideas tangible for the learners or readers, respectively. PR3: 90-Day Ethical Food Entrepreneurship programme The project created a 90-day open educational resource (OER) on ethical food entrepreurship which included a) a course curriculum and modules, explaining learning objectives, topics and assessment standards and techniques b) an educators/ facilitator’s guide, explaining how to make best use of the OERs, c) suggested learning activities – participative and knowledge sharing approaches that work to reinforce learning and d) a set of integrated multimedia resources (documents, work sheets, audio, video, interactive quizzes etc.) PR4: Sharing and mentoring platform on ethical food entrepreneurship To enable knowledge sharing and peer to peer learning, an online sharing and mentoring platform was created at https://ethical-food.eu/. This platform includes a vast collection of online resources such as videos related to ethical food entrepreneurship. A Padlet environment was installed in the platform to enable knowledge sharing and peer-to-peer learning on topical issues related to sustainable and ethical food businesses. Finally, a LinkedIn group was created to enable networking and information sharing among the food educators and SMEs. LTT event The project partners invited 13 educators from their institutions to be trained as ethical food ambassadors. A 3-day training event was arranged for the pioneer teachers. The event introduced ethical food entrepreneurship and empowered educators to use the newly created teaching materials in their own teaching. ME events To share the results of the project even further, a multiplier event was organized in each partner country, totaling 3 physical ME events and 1 hybrid ME event. Instructors, students and company representatives were invited to learn about the project and its main findings and contents.