BaltFood - The BSR Food Cluster: Innovation and Competitiveness in Action

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BaltFood integrates local, regional and national food cluster organisations in six countries around the Baltic Sea into one food cluster. The cooperation focuses on enhancing the competitiveness of the BSR food industry to become the European source for valuable and affordable food products. The food industry has developed into one of the strongest business sectors in the BSR characterized by high SME involvement. This competitive position has to be secured in a dynamic, fast changing but relatively mature (regional) marketplace. Concurrently, emerging trends require a constant search for lower costs, innovation and flexible processes. This calls for both process and product innovations to be jointly nurtured and diffused by the scientific and business communities with public institutions shaping the economic development framework. Consequently BaltFood aims at contributing to a sustainable cluster-specific economic development in the BSR by making regionally-embedded knowledge available on a wider geographical basis. The specific objective is to advance the process of building a sustainable and demand-oriented pan-Baltic food cluster structure in the attempt to increase the transfer and application of technological and market-related know-how among its scientific, industry and public members by the year 2011. BaltFood is organised according to the triple helix approach with one workpackage each concentrating on the scientific, business and regional development aspect. Within the scientific area, BaltFood concentrates on identifying best practises in the food innovation process and transferring this into action through the BaltFood R&D Network. In the business area results from the BaltFood R&D network will be transferred into demand-led innovation projects. To successfully run such projects, the BaltFood Academy will be created as a pan- Baltic education body. Finally, the regional development part will create and run the structure for the pan-Baltic food cluster and contribute to a Baltic place branding approach. Results will be documented in best practise guides and first pilot implementations in the aforementioned areas will be carried out. BaltFood will increase the below-average product and process innovation reception of SME management in the BSR food cluster as a pre-condition for building a sustainable transnational innovation network. The (infra)-structural resources supporting the personnel in product and process innovation within the scientific community and the food industry SMEs to jointly identify potentially relevant trends on transnational markets will be improved.

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