Scale proven concept software to meet UK dynamic food procurement need for public sector

新冠肺炎的封锁导致全国大量的中小企业食品生产商面临风险，如果他们的业务过于集中在一个严重受影响的客户基础上。英国的中小企业初级食品生产商需要帮助，通过使供应渠道多样化来接触新客户。从历史上看，由于令人望而却步的进入壁垒，能够接触到公共部门客户的中小企业食品生产商的比例非常低。英国的食品安全高度依赖于全国每个地区的中小企业食品生产商的存在。我们对该项目的愿景是促进公共部门食品买家在全英国范围内、包括中小企业在内的动态食品采购、履行和交付能力。我们的目标是到2023年将英国公共部门食品和饮料支出的33%转移到可持续的中小企业生产商和供应商的新鲜本地农产品上。该项目的主要重点领域是将一个成熟的技术平台转变为规模化，该平台在巴斯和东北部萨默塞特郡(BANES)的试点项目中开创了动态食品采购的先河，使其可在英国所有地区使用。因此，项目资金将用于加快我们现有平台的发展：*准备好在多个地区使用*供第三方物流提供商使用*提供增强的功能，以管理更多具有更高履行能力复杂性的中小企业的履行。延长Impact资金期限将通过进一步增强第三方物流提供商的系统，提高项目的影响力和上市速度。额外的工作将开发一个物流供应商管理中心，使这些第三方能够轻松访问成功履行和交付动态采购订单所需的所有功能。动态食品采购使政府能够直接从一系列初级生产者那里采购食品。它使采购者能够在供应链完全透明的情况下在订货点购买食品。这使得购买粮食生产的决策成为可能，进而使以可持续方式(环境友好、生物多样性友好和对社会负责)生产粮食的生产者能够通过接受公共部门每年用于食品配料的20亿GB的订单来扩大业务。这意味着许多以前无法供应公共部门的中小型食品生产商现在可以这样做。因此，动态食品采购有多种好处。这些措施包括：*改善食品安全、来源的透明度和食品供应链内的问责制*改善食品生产的能源、浪费、社会和环境因素的表现，包括动物福利*减少与饮食有关的疾病负担*向脆弱的个人提供食品的供应链*促进英国每个地区的区域经济*提高价值和降低公共财政成本

The Covid-19 lockdown has resulted in large numbers of SME food producers across the country being put at risk if their business was overly concentrated on a heavily impacted customer base. SME primary food producers in the UK need help to reach new customers by diversifying their supply channels. Historically, a very low proportion of SME food producers have been able to access public sector customers due to prohibitive barriers to entry. UK food security is highly dependent on the presence of SME food producers in every region of the country.Our vision for this project is to facilitate UK-wide, SME-inclusive, dynamic food procurement, fulfilment and delivery capabilities for public sector food buyers.Our objective is to divert \>33% of UK public sector food and drink spend to fresh, local produce from sustainable SME producers and suppliers by 2023\.The main area of focus for this project is to transition a proven technology platform that pioneered dynamic food procurement in a pilot project in Bath and North East Somerset (BANES) to scale by making it available for use in all regions across the UK. As such, project funds will be used to accelerate the development of our existing platform:* to be ready to be used in multiple regions* to be used by 3rd party logistics providers* to provide enhanced functionality to manage fulfilment from more SME producers with higher complexity of fulfilment capabilitiesThe Extension for Impact funding will increase the project’s impact and speed to market by further enhancing the system for the 3rd party logistic providers. The additional work will develop a logistic provider management centre allowing these third parties to easily access all the functionality required to successfully fulfil and deliver dynamic procurement orders.Dynamic Food Procurement enables government to procure food directly from a range of primary producers. It enables the procurer to buy food at the point of order with full supply chain transparency. This enables buying decisions on the production of food which, in turn, can enable producers who are producing food sustainably (environmentally friendly, biodiversity friendly and socially responsibly) to grow their business by receiving orders out of the £2Billion spent annually on food ingredients within the public sector. It means that many SME food producers that couldn't previously supply the public sector, can now do so.So, there are multiple benefits of dynamic food procurement. These include:* improved food security, transparency of provenance and accountability within food supply chains* improved performance on energy, waste, social and environmental factors of food production including animal welfare* reduced diet related disease burden* a supply chain to deliver food to vulnerable individuals* boosted regional economies in every region of the UK* improved value and reduced cost for public purse