Sub-projects within the FINEST Centre

Innovation management in the agri-food sector 

To enable more innovation in the food system, more knowledge is needed on how different actors can both interact and develop their internal processes. In this project, knowledge about innovation in the food sector has been developed together with actors from the food sector. 

The aim has been to develop knowledge about how companies in the food sector, in different parts of the value chain, work with innovation, what challenges they face and how they can develop their innovation capacity.

Sustainable transformation of the food system

Enabling a sustainable transition of the agriculture and food sector requires a systems perspective that highlights the different components of the system and their interrelationships and interactions. In this subproject, we have drawn on research on socio-technical systems, particularly in research on sustainable transition. We see the agriculture and food sector as a socio-technical-ecological system (STES), where technologies, markets, institutions, practices, cultures, infrastructure and industrial structure, policies and supply chains interact with a variety of actors and stakeholders, and not least with the ecological system.  

The sub-project aimed to create a knowledge base on the parts of the system that are directly or indirectly linked to the three value chains included in FINEST: Swedish forest berries, protein-rich legumes and experimental food production. 

FINEST System Innovations Lab

The challenges of a sustainable transition exhibit enormous complexity where individual solutions rarely create the desired change but instead only an incremental ‘improvement’ of a system that actually needs a more radical change to become sustainable. A sustainable system transition requires changes that do not only affect individual parts of a system, but larger changes that move underlying logics that build and lock structure into the existing system. 

A system innovation lab provides a stable platform for long-term experimentation, where actors work together to explore and find solutions to different societal challenges by exploring new ways of thinking and organising. 

Healthy food from sustainable food systems

By better understanding the requirements for sustainable production, the production of a given product can be adapted to different conditions, consumer groups and markets.

FINEST researchers have worked to develop new methods and approaches to improve understanding of sustainability and how to work with sustainability integrated with food innovation.

With a focus on Swedish forest berries, legumes and experimental value chains, the FINEST centre has aimed to develop concrete tools that can be used to evaluate and integrate sustainability aspects into an innovation process at an early stage. 

FINEST Test Arena

The FINEST Test Arena has been an arena for practical product innovation and collaboration related to the FINEST priority value chains of Swedish forest berries, protein from legumes and experimental food production.

The Test Arena was a hub for experiment-based product innovation and coordinated the food technology competences and projects. The test arena covered the entire product development chain, from raw material production and processing to food safety and sensory evaluation - all with the aim of developing good and healthy food with low climate impact.

The test arena aimed to build practical and theoretical skills to develop new or alternative food products and food additives. The research was demand-driven and carried out in collaboration with companies and other FINEST stakeholders.