CORENET LIGHTHOUSE PROJECTS: STRENGTHENING PEER LEARNING AND ADVISORY COMPETENCE ACROSS EUROPE’S SHORT FOOD SUPPLY CHAINS
Discover what a Lighthouse Project is and become part of the COREnet network
Article by Rafal Serafin
As crises linked to war, climate, health, trade, and affordability put pressure on Europe’s food systems, the need for reform is increasingly clear. Growing expectations around sustainability, resilience, and fairer producer-consumer relations are pushing governments, businesses, and civil society to explore new approaches. Export-oriented industrial agri-business is no longer seen as a reliable solution.
Short food supply chains (SFSCs) are gaining attention as a way to build more sustainable, resilient, and locally based food systems. However, they remain marginal in many parts of the EU and need to be scaled up. The European Commission and member states highlight the need for advisory services tailored to SFSCs to support this shift. These services can help producers innovate, encourage consumer engagement, and support partnerships in addressing operational, regulatory, digital, and governance challenges.
In this context, the COREnet project, launched in 2022 and funded by Horizon Europe, is building a pan-European SFSCs advisory movement. It aims to engage advisory actors across all 27 EU Member States by strengthening capacities, improving knowledge exchange, and supporting continuous cross-border learning.
A key tool for this is the Lighthouse Projects: practical, visible national initiatives that highlight challenges and solutions in advisory practice while creating opportunities for mutual learning across countries. The call for Lighthouse Projects was launched in 2025, aiming for at least one project per Member State. The first seven projects are underway in Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, and Portugal.
Within COREnet, Lighthouse Projects go beyond demonstration activities and serve two main roles. First, they offer a clear entry point for international actors to understand SFSCs advisory practices in a specific country, making national experiences more accessible to European peers. Second, they connect local actors, advisors, producers, civil society, and public authorities, to the wider COREnet network. Through this, participants gain European visibility, collaborate across borders, and contribute to the development of a shared SFSCs advisory movement.
For those supporting SFSCs development – across the public sector, business, or civil society – the Lighthouse Projects offer two key opportunities: insight into innovations in other Member States and a way to connect domestic practice to the growing pan-European COREnet advisory movement.
For more information, find the details at the end of this news update and read about the already funded Lighthouse Projects!
Belgium: enhancing the advisory environment for shared food processing infrastructure
The Belgian Lighthouse Project addresses a key challenge in Flanders: the underuse of existing on-farm processing facilities and the barriers faced by new entrants that wish to process food products. By drawing on the Swedish Balsgård Food Tech Golden Case and adapting its operational and governance lessons to the Flemish context, the initiative strengthens advisory capacity on shared infrastructure, regulatory compliance, and farmer cooperation. It also opens Belgium’s advisory landscape to European peers while positioning Flemish actors as active contributors to the COREnet community.
Bulgaria: deepening producer–consumer engagement through FARM MADE
In Bulgaria, the FARM MADE market has become a reference point for structured producer–consumer interaction. The Lighthouse Project buildson this by integrating international learning, field visits, and advisory capacity building to improve communication, product presentation, and consumer trust. For European peers, it offers insight into an approach that combines market professionalism with community engagement. For Bulgarian actors, it provides access to the CORENet network and its shared European knowledge base.
Italy: consolidating and replicating community supported agriculture through structured advisory tools
Italy’s initiative builds on the established CSA “La Rakene” in Apulia. The Lighthouse Project conducts an advisory audit, systematises the model, and develops a transferable “CSA Model Package” that other regions can adopt. Through structured workshops, study visits, and crossborder exchange, particularly with Portugal’s Fruta Feia, Italy positions its CSA ecosystem as a learning site for European peers while using COREnet as a platform to strengthen regional advisory capabilities in participatory governance and communitybased food systems.
Cyprus: transforming Elaiones Stagona into a functioning SFSC learning hub
Elaiones “Stagona,” a vertically integrated olive farm, developed through practice-based learning. The Cypriot Lighthouse Project strengthens this by introducing structured advisory methods, organising demonstration days, and deepening links between advisors, producers, and consumers. It opens the farm to European peers, while giving Cypriot actors access to COREnet’s advisory networks and opportunities.
The Netherlands: testing the farmeradvisor model to enable seasonal supply continuity
Dutch CSAs face limited supply in winter. The Lighthouse Project pilots a solution based on collaboration with arable farms, coordinated by a “Farmer Advisor” acting as facilitator and advisor. This model combines practical experience with advisory skills and may be relevant across Europe. It offers insight into peer-to-peer advisory for international actors, while linking Dutch practitioners to the COREnet community.
Portugal: advancing inclusive and sustainable SFSCs through SEMEAR
SEMEAR combines organic farming, circular practices, and employment for people with intellectual disabilities, showing how SFSCs can support both sustainability and inclusion. The Portuguese Lighthouse Project turns this experience into a bilingual toolbox and shares it through European workshops, making it accessible to other countries and strengthening Portugal’s role in COREnet.
Spain: developing a strategic roadmap for sustainable food hubs
Spain’s Sustainable Food Hubs network plays a key role in aggregating and distributing agroecological products. The Lighthouse Project brings together practitioners, advisors, and local actors to co-create a strategic roadmap for its future. This serves as both a national tool and a resource for European peers, while connecting Spanish actors to the wider COREnet advisory network.
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The first seven projects show that while challenges differ across Europe, the need for shared learning and stronger advisory skills is common. COREnet research highlights that innovation cannot rely on isolated technical expertise alone. Advisors need a mix of methodological, interpersonal, organisational, and reflective skills – best developed through collaboration and exchange across contexts.
The ambition is to establish at least one Lighthouse Project in every EU Member State, creating a Europe-wide network of advisory entry points. Together, these will form a distributed, practice-based knowledge system to support advisors, strengthen local food strategies, and improve the long-term sustainability and resilience of SFSCs across Europe.
APPLY FOR A LIGHTHOUSE PROJECT
Are you a public authority, private sector actor, civil society organisation, or advisory professional? The COREnet project is still looking for Lighthouse projects from 20 new countries that are eligible for receiving funding.
Join the COREnet network as an SFSCs Advisor and propose a Lighthouse Project to strengthen SFSCs advisory practices in your country.
Open call press release:
Call for proposals: COREnet Lighthouse Projects for SFSC Advisors across the EU – Corenet
LIGHTHOUSE PROJECT APPLICATION GUIDE (in all EU languages)
OPEN-CALL-LHP-translations_COREnet.pdf
LIGHTHOUSE On-line application:
CORENET LIGHTHOUSE APPLICATION
