Agri‐Food producers have a responsibility to provide safe, secure and sustainable food in a world characterized by disruption and increasing intolerance of waste along supply chains. As such, it is critical that they adopt new technologies to ensure efficient and effective management of their responsibility. While Industry 4.0 (I4.0) technologies can underpin process innovation opportunities, there is a gap in research‐based understanding of how they influence innovation practice and outcomes in Agri‐Food. In this paper, we investigate how I4.0, as a set of enabling technologies, influences core process innovation practice and product innovation outcomes in Agri‐Food firms. We present case studies of two Spanish firms processing fresh food products, competing in two important subsectors of the industry, meat and fruit and vegetables. We used secondary material and semi‐structured interviews as data sources. The findings describe how, in the two cases, I4.0 has enabled responses to new customers requirements through process innovations resulting in enhanced functionality, aesthetics and meaning of the delivered products. Our paper contributes a framework identifying for researchers and managers how I4.0 technologies act as enablers of the core innovation processes and competitive outcomes.

Open innovation (OI) has been mainly associated with high-technology firms. This paper aims to analyze how firms in low and medium technology industries implement their OI strategy. In doing so, we explore common patterns in OI strategies by considering inbound, outbound, and coupled OI practices. We also examine whether there are differences in innovation performance among companies adopting a specific OI strategy. The study is carried out on a sample of 242 Spanish innovating companies. Based on the relevance of the different OI practices, we identify three types of OI firms: advanced open innovators, intermediate open innovators, and incipient open innovators. Our results reveal that advanced open innovators have a higher performance in product innovation, and that there are no differences among groups in process and organizational innovation. Index Terms-Coupled OI, inbound OI, low and medium technology industries, open innovation (OI) practices, outbound OI.

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