Throughout the two years that TRADEIT has been running, one of its primary objectives has been to support SME growth and competitiveness through the effective use of technology. Bearing in mind that our focus is on traditional food producing SMEs in the diary, meat and bakery sectors, this is quite a challenge.

Over that time, we have talked to a lot of SMEs, over 700 have attended TRADEIT events, and many more have been contacted through our HUBs or have sought advice from our experts. Our aim with this ongoing dialogue has been to support the adoption of innovation and/or innovative practice by the artisan food producers we engage with. There are two issues that generally arise when we use the words ‘artisan’ and ‘innovation’ in the same sentence. One is that many artisan producers remain dedicated to their craft, maintaining that it’s the manual nature of the production process that makes it worthy of the description ‘artisan’. Two is the assumption that innovation must be technology based, when in reality innovation is anything that is new to you, not something that is new to the world and that it may be a product, process or service innovation.  The way in which innovation can impact on artisan entrepreneurial businesses is wide and highly varied. It does not have to have a negative impact on the essence of the process or compromise the ethics of the producer to be impactful in a positive way.

At TRADEIT our approach from the outset has been to ask businesses what they need, rather than tell them what they should have. In this respect, the past two years has been marked by a series of consultation exercises in which we have asked businesses to tell us about their business needs and to tell us what factors most inhibit their potential for growth. We did this initially through an online survey and through small group discussions and workshops.

Partly in response to the consultation above and partly based on our knowledge of trends (such as gluten free in the bakery sector), we have arranged a series of brokerage events. There have been six brokerage events in total which focused on the expertise of our sector specific Hubs. Three events addressed cross-sectoral needs: sustainability, packaging, food safety and the other three address the main product areas: dairy, meat and bakery.

The brokerage events brought technology and knowledge providers together with SMEs in a very specific context. The events provided the SMEs with the opportunity to tackle a specific technology problem that they have identified and discussed with the local Hub Adviser. The bi-lateral meetings, a key feature of the brokerage events, created the space for detailed discussions and networking between technology provider and producer. But this is not the only way in which problems have been addressed. TRADEIT recognises that a lot of learning takes place through peer assistance – artisan to artisan – and may have involved no technology at all. What we know is that peers from the same industry can directly relate to the challenges and frustrations of a particular context. That the practitioners often possess a deep and hard won knowledge of the sector and sharing that knowledge can be more beneficial than most other sources of support or intervention.

Our research and experience also tells us that solutions to the problems experienced by artisans are often more management and soft skills related than product related. The producer may need help with creating a social media strategy, or managing their employees or finance. There are also many examples of supply chain and distribution chain issues that don’t just impact on a single producer, but the sector in a specific region or clusters of artisans from a range of sectors.

With TRADEIT in its final year as a project, the SME Missions form the final stage of the project’s formal activities to support innovation transfer. A series of Missions is taking place at the nine regional hubs and each Mission will be organised around the needs of the local SME (local to the specific hub). Details of the Missions can be found on the TRADEIT website and in the articles in this newsletter. Some of the Missions are still ‘works in progress’ so now is a good time to contact your local hub to express an interest in an event, or suggest a topic for Mission that might be relevant to you or your sector.

The Missions aim to bring people with a common problem to solve together with those who may be able to provide a solution, or at least move the problem closer to resolution.  The articles in this newsletter give some examples of the type of Missions being planned. Missions may take many forms and we have started to loosely describe them as: micro; meso and macro in terms of their focus and scale.

The micro mission may be a small group (less than 10) of producers in a particular region or sector who share a common problem. In this respect the mission is highly focused and more of a round table discussion facilitated by the Hub Advisor and supported by relevant experts with knowledge of the specific issue to be addressed. Micro scale missions may also be necessary to reflect the wide geographic spread of artisans in some of the Hub regions.

The meso mission may be larger in scale (10 -20 participants) and address a more general or wider scale problem within a sector or region.  These events acknowledge that a solution to a problem may be regional, rather than product or sector specific.

The macro scale missions may be industry wide and be of more relevance to the larger scale producers. It reflects the understanding that the concept of the SMEs represents a vast array of businesses, some with many employees and a complex infrastructure.  While to some the term ‘artisan’ may no longer be relevant to businesses of this scale, we recognise that the problems faced by medium sized producers still need to be addressed and their valuable experience shared with smaller scale producers.  The macro mission may also relate to a specific sector or cluster, regardless of the scale of the producer.

The Missions feed into the concept of the Small Business Technology Transfer and Research (SBTTR) model adopted by TRADEIT.  This five stage model aims to support the process of knowledge and innovation transfer into small and medium sized business (model attached), with the aim of improving their overall competitiveness. The Missions aim to support stages 4 and 5 of this process, by helping SMEs not simply to find solutions, but to address the complex legal and contractual complexities of securing and adopting a new technology. It may also be that the innovation is already within the SME and the producer needs support in understanding how to protect his/her intellectual property.

In summary, the TRADEIT Missions are there to support artisan food producing SMEs in the meat, dairy and bakery sectors. They will be running across the whole TRADEIT network and it’s your opportunity to access expert advice and support to solve your problems and that’s too good an opportunity to miss.