This study aims at providing a framework to find out best agro-food practices and foster their spreading to European actors operating in Short Food Supply Chain (SFSC). Quick knowledge circulation allows a reduction of asymmetric information among such operators. These latter frequently imply an excessive level of transactional costs that negatively affect farms economic sustainability. Hence, reduction of costs is an important priority. The methodological approach is carried out within the SKIN project, analyzing metrics parameters to assess SFSC economic sustainability. It will create local hubs to collect knowledge from each European area where stakeholders operate, through the identification of adequate regional nodes, connected among themselves. Network will enable a real knowledge transfer and innovation uptake. Lastly, the network will be exploited to enhance the added value of involved farms.
Nowadays a growing interest in how agritourism could be able to promote alternative nutrition stands out. The increase in the number of elderly has determined a desire for quality of life improvement; consequently, more attention has been paid to the role of food and their contents. A diet comprising Functional Foods could help not only to improve life quality of an aging population, as these foods are potentially capable to improve health and well-being; but they could also reduce health risks or delay the onset of serious pathologies. Moreover, scientific evidence of the correlation between diet and health for the elderly population, having a sedentary lifestyle and even a constant increase in healthcare costs, have addressed the interest in healthier food products. The aim of this paper was to design new food-based paths for agritourism farms that could promote health, nutritional and cultural values. To define these paths, a two steps analysis was carried out: (1) opinion collection from elderly and agritourism operators and (2) definition of a logical framework.Results highlighted that differentiating what is offered could increase health levels of elderly and create new multi “functional” shapes for agritourism farms aimed at both offering local and Functional Foods for elderly and at spreading social-tradition values.
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