Practice Abstract - Research and innovation

Irish Food Cooperative

The aim of Irish Food Co-op is to maximise their efficiency and sales through shared national distribution. For retailers, the ‘one entity’ nature of the Irish Food Co-op brings considerable benefits including one contact, one invoice and one delivery. It's a venture for many Irish artisan food companies including, Mileeven, Tastefully Yours, Knockanore Cheese, Killowen Farm, O'Neills, The Little Mill and Carrigbyrne Farmhouse. This not for profit cooperative of Irish artisan producers in an effort to maximise sales and distribution. They are a producer-owned food co-operative that links food producers.

Community confidence and valorising local tradition: The novel platform has benefits for local primary producers as it is an effective tool to connect them to consumers.

One of the most important challenges for any SFSC is how to reach the consumers. The identification of good practices from The Irish Co-Op allows for the implementation of similar on-line platforms which connect local food producers to consumers. For scattered small producers (even within the same sector) it is difficult to sell their products on the market because of the size and the unevenness of their production throughout the year. Innovative good practices (joint brands, labels, etc.) to make small producers entering larger markets together could provide solutions to this problem.

Source Project
SKIN - Short supply chains Knowledge & Innovation Network
Ongoing | 2016-2019
Main funding source
Horizon 2020 (EU Research and Innovation Programme)
Geographical location
Italy
Project details

Project Keywords