Changing Your Food Game!

When looking into short food supply chains, the challenge is to overcome the ease of your regular offset in order to find the value of your products. The goal of this module is to give some ideas and tips on how to create added value to farm products. You will get some practical suggestions along with concrete examples from innovative farmers based in The Netherlands. The module is divided into four main lessons: “whole is all” (using the whole of your products), “what makes your product different” (finding your added value), “utilizing (local) gastronomy” (selling to local restaurants, cafes…) and finally “it’s such a waste to waste” (seeing waste product as an opportunity). These chapters show just a few of the ways you could create added value to farm products, but since the world is full of other possibilities, we would like you to take inspiration from these cases but then to adapt them according to your context and personal experience.

Aims & objectives

  • Giving suggestions on how to create added value to farm products
  • Showing concrete examples from innovative farms
  • Inspiring you to adapt these cases to your local reality

  1. Create added value to your farm product : use them whole !
  2. What makes your product different?
  3. Utilizing (local) gastronomy
  4. It’s such a waste to waste

The first way to add value to your farm product is to use them completely, there is a whole world to explore. Is there a way to avoid separating your farm product into different parts and instead using it entirely? Is there a way that the combination of two products results in a higher value than simply selling them separately? This could give an added value to your product.

Let’s take the example of cheesemaker Remeker, renowned for its high quality cheese.

At Remeker, they started utilizing their Ghee (cleared butter) in order to coat their cheeses. Whereas you might know the traditional Dutch Gouda, Leerdammer and Edammer for its wax coat, Remeker changed the product by using its own coat. The innovation in that case consisted in using the cream to make the crust of the cheese itself (in the form of ghee). In this way, Remeker avoided buying wax, creating a natural crust and utilizing the natural values of its products. So the ghee (cleared butter) is directly used on top of the cheese to make the crust and this avoids both the use of an external input (wax) and it makes a very unique cheese (no one else in The Netherlands uses ghee to coat cheeses).

As a little exercise: If you aren’t already selling your product as a whole, could you think of ways to do so? Would you find synergies in your “portfolio”? Do you separate your products into different (lower value) parts? Can this be avoided to create a unique product?

Difference is a value: this is something that cannot be taken for granted. When choosing the products you are selling it’s extremely important to carry out a market research and see which other products similar to yours are sold in your area and based on that think of how you can differentiate yourself. As you know, you simply can’t just copy your neighbors concept. So, what is your Unique Selling Point? An example from the east of The Netherlands is “De Nieuwe Melkboer” (the new dairy farmer). This company grows their own soybeans to prepare local plant-based milk which is also sold on a local level. What is the difference between this soy milk and the rest? This is one of the very few soy drinks on the Dutch market which is made artisanally using 100% locally grown ingredients. Next to that, it’s a product which is in demand and adapts to the changing dietary wishes of society.

Bringing it to your farm: Let’s think about your products, how can you differentiate it from the rest of the farms in your area? Can you think of a new way of transforming it? Or can you offer a different breed or variety? Maybe bringing back to the market a variety that used to be popular some years or decades ago and that is now disappearing?

In this chapter we challenge you to develop a strong local network. In particular we invite you to look at the local restaurants, bars and even caterers in order to sell your product directly to them, or use their reputation to sell yours. Why has your product an added value in this case? Because it’s local and because it’s sold directly from the farmer (you) to the table (the restaurants).

An example is Lindenhoff, an urban farm in the outskirts of Amsterdam who is selling most of its products (a vast variety ranging from veggies to meat, eggs and cheese) directly to local restaurants in the city. The farm also has the option to sell boxes and ready-to-cook- meals for consumers in Amsterdam. These boxes are curated by local – and well known – chefs, which help add value to your product.

Exercise: Map your local gastronomic realities and you network around it, prepare an inventory of the products they could be interested in (raw materials, packages already assembled and ready to be prepared or even final products ready to be served) and reach out to them! You can also offer to organize special sessions in the restaurants where the “guests meet the farmer”, in which you can explain your personal story, the story of your farm and of your products. Or even better, host a “pop-up dinner” at your farm. People love storytelling and they love getting to know the person behind the food they eat!

Last but not least we suggest you rethink the waste produced in your farm: how can this be transformed into something with an added value? This can be done in a circular way (for example by re-integrating the waste into the farming cycle) or by creating different new products with it.
An example? JARA is a project started by a CSA farm in the outskirts of Amsterdam, where unsold veggies from their farm and neighboring farms are turned into delicious sauces and preserves. These veggies cannot be sold for different reasons, but mainly the cause it’s their appearance which does not meet the market’s standards. So these veggies are perfectly edible but “too ugly” to be sold. But in a sauce this does not matter anymore! How do they overcome the problem of having different waste all the time? By creating seasonal sauces /dips / soups or special limited editions. It’s local, it’s sustainable, it’s delicious: people love it!

Exercise: Make a list of the products prone to getting wasted in your farm (from carrot stalks to animal cuts to manure) and use your creativity, potentially while brainstorming with a local chef: how can you turn them into something with a market value?