Prototype Local Food for Local Markets

Purpose and goal:

The prototype has developed the board game Local food for local markets. The game aims to help public actors and local food producers to develop transactions that are ecologically, socially and economically sustainable and to jointly build a resilient infrastructure for local food. The game supports relationship building and communication between key actors, provides insight into each other´s terms, identifies strategies and room for action as well as alternative business models, and identifies actors with important functions which have typically not been involved previously.

Expected results and effects: The prototype has taken steps towards the goal of promoting nature-positive regenerative food production by: 1) identifying and removing obstacles for the public sector to support such production; 2) creating forms of communication and collaboration between key actors that can lead to investments;

3) making visible and involving more municipal units with bearing on the local food system;

4) develop a process for this in the form of a game. In addition, the prototype work has developed cooperation on the local market in Södertälje municipality and strengthened the actors´ abilities. Approach and implementation:

"Local food for local markets" was developed in collaboration between representatives from agriculture, processing, storage, logistics, procurement, purchasing and cooking. Part of the prototyping was the actual purchase of local organic potatoes for Södertälje municipality´s meal service. Through that and an exploratory workshop setup, we mapped and made visible the actors´ driving forces, terms and needs.

In the next step, we identified solutions linked to purchases, contracts, added value and budget space to create a local market for food with the public sector as a customer.