WhiteFishMall
North Atlantic Whitefish Marine Living Lab
The Project
Project aim
Aim of the project – create and test methodology for facilitating learning activities within communities of Practice (COP) Community of Practice online learning platform would be based on social network of Facebook and integrated with related audio-visual platforms like YouTube, LinkedIn. Existing social media and information exchange platforms provides myriad opportunities for learning, however, must be used wisely in order to deliver information in more structured way for elderly learners – suitable for search, classify, check, and use of information for practical purposes. Especially this approach is relevant for persons, who are outside formal learning process – particularly for adults. Project will target individual, organizational and sectoral learning – it will empower adult learners to use communities of practice for educational purposes; Non-formal education organizations will be able to provide online facilitation in COPs. Adult education sector will be enriched with innovative network-based learning opportunities.
Project partners
Iceland
Matís ohf.
Jónas R. Viðarsson
Research Group Leader
jonas@matis.is
Matís ohf.
Valur N. Gunnlaugsson
Project Manager
valur@matis.is
Faroe Islands
Syntesa sp/f
Ólavur Gregersen
CEO
olavur@syntesa.fo
Syntesa sp/f
Durita R. Djurhuus
Project Manager
durita@syntesa.fo
Norway
Nofima AS
Petter Olsen
Senior Scientist
Petter.olsen@nofima.no
Norway Seafoods Group AS
Anne Sølvberg Breivik
Group Innovation Manager
Anne.breivik@norwayseafoods.com
Project period
Nordic Innovation, Stensberggata 25, NO-0170 Oslo, Norway
Phone: (+47) 22 61 44 00. Fax: (+47) 22 55 65 56.
E-mail: info@nordicinnovation.org
www.nordicinnovation.org
The WhiteFishMaLL project was a three-year research and development initiative that ran from the beginning of 2012 until early 2015.
About
This project gives a holistic view of the progress of the WhiteFishMaLL project, how it was
set-up in accordance with Living Lab methodologies and run with the aim of including users
and key stakeholders in co-creating a solution that would meet with the users needs. The
report also includes guidelines for starting and running Living Lab projects in the marine
sector, as well as an evaluation report on the application of Living Lab methodologies in the
WhiteFishMaLL project from the viewpoint of external Living Lab experts that monitored the project on behalf of Nordic Innovation, which funded the project.
Results
The project had the following seven specific objectives (SO) that needed to be met in order to
ensure successful completion of the project:
1. Identification of market demand for differentiation
2. Conceptualisation of differentiation parameters and indicators
3. Design and specification of information generation
4. Development of communication channels and distribution systems
5. Demonstration of brand stature and strength
6. Evaluation of consumer preferences, applicability and performance
7. Recommendation on how Living Labs can enhance innovation in the marine sector
Project idea:
From the final report of the project
Cod and haddock products from the North Atlantic come primarily from sustainably harvestedstocks, are healthy to eat and have comparatively low environmental impact. In an ideal world these favourable characteristics should provide these products with a competitive advantage and higher prices in the market, but currently this is not the case. A key reason for this is the lack of differentiation of cod and haddock products from the N-Atlantic compared to other whitefish species, for example similar products from Asia – e.g. pangasius and tilapia. The products are homogeneous, they do not stand out in comparison with competing products and there is little done to try to highlight the many positive properties that they have. The WhiteFishMaLL project was initiated to address these challenges.
WhiteFishMaLL, which stands for North Atlantic Whitefish Marine Living Lab, was
a three year research and development project that ran from beginning of year 2012 until
early 2015. The primary objective of the WhiteFishMaLL project was to build a branding
platform for whitefish from the North Atlantic that facilitates market differentiation in terms
of sustainability and superior consumer benefits. The project had also a secondary objective,
which was to demonstrate how a Living Lab can be established in the marine sector, dealing
with a specific innovation challenges, where the solution is co-created, explored, demonstrated and evaluated with a user-centric approach in real-world environments. This meant applying Living Lab approaches to meet with the main objective, and using that process to demonstrate how Living Lab can be applied in the Nordic marine sector.
The structure of the project was designed according to Living Lab methodologies. Users
and variable stakeholders within the value chain of N-Atlantic cod and haddock products
sold in the UK, identified consumer needs and market differentiation parameters, and then
co-created a solution to meet with the identified consumer needs. The identified consumer
needs addressed issues such as distrust in information on product packaging regarding
various product properties, origin, sustainability, quality and product history. A solution
capable of meeting those needs was then co-created with users and stakeholders, such as
consumers, retail, foodservice, wholesalers, distributors, processors, fishers and technology
providers. The solution was a mobile application called the DigitalFishmonger that is capable of disseminating facts on the product’s history on a batch-level. This application requires information from the fish business operators, and this information system will constitute a branding platform for whitefish from the N-Atlantic.
