Climate-smart food is a broad concept with different definitions depending on where and how food products are produced. Climate-smartness in the Northern Finland and Sweden does not necessarily mean the same as e.g. in Central or Southern Europe. Companies operating in the North face challenges such as difficult weather conditions and long logistic distances typical to sparsely populated areas. On the other hand, these northern areas are known to be clean with production of raw materials using less pesticides and medicines. Arcticity as such may be seen as added value to the products and branding, but this is not efficiently utilized by all companies in our project area.
In the Interreg Aurora funded project ClimateFood project the aim is to “climate-smarten” SME food businesses operating in different roles of food ecosystems in Finland (Northern Ostrobothnia, Lapland) and Sweden (Norrbotten, Västerbotten). We study the latest research data and companies’ best practices in order to identify opportunities for climate-smarting food businesses, including collaborative regional and cross-border activities. We work for increasing the adaptation of the identified climate-smart practices in food businesses and food value chains. We encourage the companies to expand their cooperation networks also to the other side of the border by establishing a cross-border network cooperation, that will boost the transfer of knowledge and success stories related to climate-smart practices and their adoption in food businesses.
For the SMEs, the project offers first-hand access to all the activities and results related to developing, evaluating, upgrading and adopting climate-smart practices for food businesses. In addition, the SMEs are provided the benefits of cross-border network cooperation covering the Northern parts of Finland and Sweden.
