Category 1 – Regulatory Frameworks/ Enhanced market access/ Financial services and insurance

The model of the food industry is in many ways broken. Moving fruit and vegetables from farm to dinner table can take months as the food travels through a number of middlemen before arriving with the customers. To endure the journey, the food is filled with chemicals. The end result: Fruits and vegetables are months old, chemically laden, tasteless, and with little nutritional value. Additionally, the many actors involved compress the value left for farmers, and especially smallholder farmers are struggling to make ends meet, as the only way to compete is through quantity, not quantity. Finally, the long journey and the many actors involved result in high pollution in terms of a high food waste, energy for refrigeration and artificial ripening, excessive use of packaging materials, and inefficient transportation between middlemen. In short, the process is unnecessarily slow, unnatural and polluting, and deprives farmers of value. With its innovative digital platform Fresh.Land shortens the food supply chain by cutting 3-5 middlemen - with Fresh.Lands model the farmers’ trees and fields become natural “warehouses” as they harvest fresh for every shipment. Instead of months, products take only days to reach consumers across Europe. The Fresh.Land model provides value for the ones who matter; the farmers, the environment and customers:

https://fresh.land

• Finland
• Netherlands

• Indigenous and nomadic peoples
• Remote and rural communities

Farmers receive 20-50% higher prices for their products increasing their livelihood and employment possibilities in rural areas. Additionally by selling straight from the farm, quality, not quantity becomes the driving parameter, enabling smallholder farmers better means for competing. The environmental footprint is significantly reduced, as the Fresh.Land model lowers food waste by 10% and refrigeration needs are reduced by 88% (WWF, 2016). There is no need for gas-infused artificial ripening, chemical preservatives or excessive use of packaging. In turn, customers receive chemically-free products of superior quality, taste and health properties, at competitive prices. Because products are harvested when ready, longevity of products are significantly increased, lowering food waste at the customer end. The Fresh.Land solution is a digital model of the future, transforming the food supply-chain for the better. Our innovative model has already received prestigious awards, including two “Seals of Excellence” from the EU Commission, and the SDG Tech Awards for “Most Sustainable Food Company” in Denmark. Fresh.Land was coined “truly pioneer in the new climate economy” by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and Forbes identified us as “one of the most promising green startups in the EU”. Our business is growing rapidly, and this year we will launch the platform in eight new European markets, allowing farmers and consumers across Europe to trade on our online farmers market, and together fuel the development of a fairer, healthier and more sustainable food-system.

Fresh.Land was founded in 2015. Fresh.Land started as a business-to-business (B2B) company, cutting out the middle-men in the beginning of the supply-chain and selling directly to the supermarkets. The company achieved profitability via B2B sales in 2016 (DKK 2 million in sales). At the time the product was mostly orange crates. We always had the ambition to sell directly to consumers (B2C), but at the early stages the demand volume was so low, that it did not make sense for farmers to onboard. Getting farmers to ship boxes directly to e.g. 50 customers did not make sense in any way, as labor and transportation costs would be too high pr. unit. to make sense. Being B2B allowed us to establish such a big volume that the shift to B2C was now possible. In 2019, our revenue was DKK 12.8m, mainly from B2B clients. In July 2019 we opened our B2C prototype to the market. Since then our sales have grown steadily every month. The 2020 turnover was DKK 50m and we currently provide more than 70 different products from six different countries, and are selling in Denmark and Sweden. Fruits and vegetables are Fresh.Land’s core product. Throughout the journey growing the Fresh.Land business and team are of course highlights. But given that Fresh.Land was founded with the purpose of giving back to farmers, the fact that we have expanded our supplier network and onboarded farmers in both Portugal, Spain, Belgium Denmark, Sweden and Italy are vital milestones. During 2020 more than 80 farmers were onboarded to the platform, giving them access to a whole new market and customer groups.

21. E-agriculture Ensure the systematic dissemination of information using ICTs on agriculture, animal husbandry, fisheries, forestry and food, in order to provide ready access to comprehensive, up-to-date and detailed knowledge and information, particularly in rural areas. Public-private partnerships should seek to maximize the use of ICTs as an instrument to improve production (quantity and quality).