During January-April 2021 "Baltic Sea Food" partners evaluated the results and experiences of the piloting the B2B local food distribution business model locally in 13 pilot regions from 10 countries. The original idea of the piloting was to test a new business model for B2B local food distribution in the pilot regions, taking account of local characteristics and conditions. As the piloting phase of the project coincided with the outbreak of Covid-19, there were severe implications in most of the piloting organisations as to what could be done, in comparison with what had been initially planned, due to the virus and its impact. The piloting of the B2B model succeeded at large scale in 3 pilot organisations, in smaller scale in 8 pilot organisations and in 2 pilot organisations it was not possible to pilot the B2B model in 2020 and it has been postponed. The most common good experiences related with the piloting were finding new or more customers – and conversely for customers finding new suppliers. Challenges encountered during piloting included those relating with packaging and handling products with different expiry date. The distributors were of the opinion that the producers were not always consistent and professional enough in this. Staff related issues, as well as lack of finances also presented a challenge.
The national reports evaluating the results of each pilot region are available in this website, section Evaluation reports. The consolidated evaluation report of the piloting is available here.