The New Frontiers in Food (NF4) project is an internationalization accelerator for innovative agro-food SMEs, driven by an alliance of five European food clusters: Clusaga (Spain), Food Valley (Netherlands), Valorial (France), Vitagora (France) and Wagralim (Belgium). It is funded by the European Program for the Competitiveness of Small and Medium Enterprises (COSME) within the framework of the European Strategic Cluster Partnerships - Going International (ESCP-4i)
Objectives the project
The objective of NF4 is to develop a joint internationalization strategy with the aim of improving the competitiveness of SMEs in the participating clusters by facilitating access to international markets more easily.
For this, an intelligent strategy based on the combination of several interconnected specializations has been defined. Specifically, NF4 has detected three complementary value chains that represent great opportunities for growth at the international level, which are:
- Connected foods
- Functional foods and healthy ingredients
- Processed food products
Resources available to participating SMEs
Nf4 provides a complete package of acceleration services to SMEs with the aim of boosting international collaboration for innovation and business development within four target markets abroad, with which the cluster consortium is already connected: Canada, Brazil, China and USA.
The resources to which participating SMEs will have access in NF4 are:
- Support in business and market intelligence. A report from each destination country will be available on a secure platform with information on the market and key stakeholders.
- Intensive mentoring and coaching. Mentors and coaches members of the cluster network will provide personalized training to SMEs in fields such as regulation, market access, market positioning, etc.
- B2B matchmaking events on target buyers. The NF4 project will organize B2B agendas for selected SMEs, in missions integrated into existing food innovation fairs and events.
- Technological events in Europe. Reciprocally, the consortium will attract business and innovation actors to visit European regions and create opportunities to establish international contacts at source.
- Internationalization checks. To support SMEs in their internationalization, a system of checks will be implemented, which will be used to support the participation of SMEs in international missions.
