The seven farms that participate in Use Case 5.4 Decision making optimisation in beef supply chain all feel the COVID-19 crisis quite differently. The test farm in Girona, Spain, needed to scale up, since the demand from the supermarkets increased. At the same time the test farm in Portugal saw their sales plummet, since the restaurants they produce for all needed to close. Same crisis, different outcome. So how does UC 5.4 help their farmers to get through the corona crisis? We speak to Ana Bugueiro from Sensowave, the lead partner in this Use Case.

One of the things the partners in UC 5.4 plan to do, is to offer consumers more insight in where their meat comes from. ‘A transparent chain is a healthy chain,’ says Ana. ‘There’s much to win with increased transparency in the meat production chain. Our test farms produce meat in a healthy, sustainable way. If we can show that to consumers, they will value the meat more.’

The first version of the application for consumers is planned to be ready around August-September this year. Yet, the farmers feel the drop-in demand right now. “We’re in the process of building a website as an alternative sales channel for our smaller farms. Here, the consumer can follow the meat and we can match demand with production. Everything we learn from building this website, will make the application better too. Hopefully, this helps to add a sales channel for our farmer’s products.”

At this moment, UC 5.4 collects the requirements for the website from the farmers. If they are interested in such a website, the first version could be ready in 2 weeks. “We’re curious to hear the experience of other UC’s with such a consumer platform,” says Ana.