The Circular Agriculture Hub initiative has been designed by Dr Lucy McCarthy, Associate Professor in the University of Bristol Business School, and Dr Anne Touboulic, Associate Professor in Operations Management at the University of Nottingham, to help tackle food waste, access to food, and the marginalisation of small-scale farmers in the UK.
The UK faces significant issues in food waste, with 7% of food intended for consumption wasted on farms each year, while 4.7 million people struggle with food insecurity. The Circular Agriculture Hub initiative aims to address this by enabling farmers to sell surplus produce – such as slightly damaged or mis-sized fruit and vegetables – to buyers who need it.
The process is simple: farmers will be able to list their surplus produce on the Circular Agricultural Hub platform, customers can place offers, and the farmers can then accept, reject or negotiate.
It has been a busy time for the team after the project recently secured funding from ImpactU, which enables social entrepreneurs to access up to £40,000 to de-risk and accelerate their time to investment.
The project was also nominated for Transformative Social Venture of the Year at the Knowledge Exchange (KE) Awards held in Bristol last night (Thursday November 21).
The awards are organised by PraxisAuril, the UK’s professional association for KE practitioners, to help tell the stories of innovation and impact in the sector, celebrate outstanding performance, and share learning.
Dr McCarthy said: “I am delighted the Circular Agriculture Hub has gained funding to take the project to the next stage, and honoured we were nominated in the KE Awards. We are confident this initiative will not only reduce food waste but reconnect consumers with the origins of their food, we hope this will help challenge the dominance of supermarkets and provide access to fresh foods, reducing our dependence on ultra-processed foods.”
The project reflects Dr McCarthy and Dr Touboulic’s critical stance on the food industry, which they argue disproportionately benefits large corporations while leaving farmers in precarious conditions.
The Circular Agriculture Hub will initially operate as an offline service, facilitating connections via phone calls and paperwork, before expanding to a digital platform. The long-term goal is to operate the Hub into multiple regional centres and potentially extend it internationally, with a focus on fostering a circular economy and supporting sustainable food systems.
The project was previously supported by ARC Accelerate and has had support from the Commercialisation and Impact team in Division of Research, Enterprise and Innovation at the University of Bristol.