In Bulgaria the three main stakeholders which influence food production include central Government including agencies, trade bodies and educational institutions. The creation of the Healthy Food partnership in Bulgaria started with bilateral meetings with well known scientists, representatives of food safety organizations and business support agencies with the idea to have their understanding and support as the basic step in creation of the partnership. It was believed that they might act both as supporters of the idea, spreading it further and as highly valuable source of ideas. Contacting them all together was possible due to intensive networking of Euro Perspectives Foundation.

  • Partnership Members at the launch of the Nourish eu Toolkit
  • Stakeholder Meeting

Main challenges for the partnership are:

• There is not enough promotion of the support that health food producers can avail of

• There is a lack of communication and an unwillingness to develop networking mechanisms to introduce healthy food

• Training is a very important area for development since the current provision is outdated and not tailored for the needs of food producers

• Tailor made funding and support to producers of healthy food is needed

Stakeholder Insight:

“Healthy food and innovation in food sector in all forms is a key issue for the future development of Bulgaria as a whole since this is a possible driver for positive economic development, growth of the economy and survival of the companies. This is to be included in all strategic documents for the next planning period 2014 – 2020.”

 

Agreed actions set by the Bulgarian partnership:

• Promote improvement of cooperation between parties involved in innovation delivery to bring technologies for healthy food closer to the producers

• Stimulation of innovation management in SMEs

• Support the development of short food chains for fresh food

• Cooperation and networking among food producers to encourage healthy food production

 

Find out more about the Nourish Eu Partnership in the Bulgaria

Lead Partner in Bulgaria: Euro Perspectives Foundation
Email:  veleslava.tsakova@gmail.com
Website: www.europerspectives.org