Improving Logistics and Shortening Value Chains
Towards Climate-Neutral Food Systems through Local Connection
At the heart of the Improving Logistics and Shortening Value Chains domain, RURBANIVE’s first Rural-Urban Enabler (RUE#1) tackles one of the most persistent challenges in the European agrifood landscape: the widening gap between producers and consumers. Long supply chains have gradually weakened the connection between rural and urban communities, inflating food miles, reducing transparency, and draining value from local economies. RUE#1 aims to reverse this pattern by promoting climate-neutral food systems through knowledge, technology, and cooperation. Anchored in Prague and led by the Czech University of Life Sciences (CZU), this RUE demonstrates how digital education and hands-on learning can create new bridges between rural producers and urban consumers, transforming logistics into a shared ecosystem of trust, quality, and sustainability.
Table of Contents
A Digital Platform Empowering Short Value Chains
The centrepiece of RUE#1 is a socially-driven digital platform designed to bring together farmers, processors, consumers, educators, and policymakers around a single goal: strengthening regional food self-reliance. The platform combines digital tools with local training resources, creating an online environment where knowledge about sustainable food production and processing is easily accessible and directly applicable. Within this platform, stakeholders can find data-driven recommendations powered by AI and machine learning, suggesting optimal processing methods, training opportunities, or collaboration routes based on their profiles and regional context. This system gradually evolves into a regional data and resource hub—a virtual space where local producers exchange know-how, share logistics solutions, and access markets more directly.
The digital environment is complemented by a Learning Management System (LMS) hosting interactive courses on the fundamentals of agrifood production and circular resource use. These online modules, with focus on crop processing, make knowledge accessible to both rural and urban audiences. In doing so, they foster a new kind of logistics: not merely the physical movement of goods, but the circulation of expertise and opportunity.
Hands-On Workshops: Where Learning Meets Practice
RUE#1 extends well beyond the digital realm. Through the Food Technology and Processing Centre (FTPC) in Prague, the project delivers a series of immersive workshops where participants learn by doing. These sessions—focusing on bakery, dairy, meat, and beer production—allow farmers, entrepreneurs, and citizens to experience the full cycle from raw material to marketable product. By combining practical training with digital empowerment, RUE#1 helps local actors to rethink their role within the agrifood system—from suppliers at the end of a long chain to active participants in regional economies.
Co-Creation and Participatory Design
In true RURBANIVE spirit, this enabler was shaped through multi-actor co-creation, bringing together local producers, research institutions, SMEs, and public authorities. Stakeholders were engaged in workshops to identify bottlenecks in logistics, data accessibility, and consumer engagement. The outcomes of these participatory processes directly informed the architecture of the platform and the content of its courses. As part of the Rural-Urban Co-Creation Lab (RUCL) in Czechia, the RUE’s design follows an iterative model: each phase of implementation—alpha, beta, and final—is reviewed and refined through feedback from users and community partners.
Expected Outcomes and Impact
By the project’s mid-term, RUE#1 will deliver:
- A fully operational digital platform interlinking local producers, consumers, and educators.
- A repository of open training resources for short value chain management.
- A network of trained stakeholders equipped to implement sustainable production and distribution models.
- Quantifiable reductions in transport distances, food waste, and energy use along selected pilot chains.
Beyond its immediate outputs, the RUE contributes to a broader transformation: building resilient, transparent, and self-sufficient food systems that support climate neutrality and territorial cohesion. The Czech pilot serves as a model for replication in other regions, proving that digital innovation and local craftsmanship can coexist and reinforce one another.
Integration within RURBANIVE
RUE#1 will be featured in the RURBANIVE Community Store, allowing other regions to access its tools, methodologies, and training materials. It also provides a reference model for future Open Call projects under the same domain, demonstrating how logistics innovation can be both technologically advanced and socially inclusive. Through its combination of digital resources, participatory co-creation, and community empowerment, this enabler embodies the essence of RURBANIVE: connecting territories, shortening distances, and enriching lives—one local product at a time.
