CiboQuadro
Basic information
Project Title
Full project title
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Project Description
Ciboquadro is a community proposing a new way of thinking and talking about food. We aim to create a link between the farmer and the citizen, in the chosen space of a restaurant table. In an historical moment in which our society needs to reconsider and re-shape its food culture we aim to stimulate active discussion and thinking around the social and ecological impact of food and its value.
Through a platform we tell farmer’s stories to accompany you and your friend at the dinner table.
Project Region
EU Programme or fund
Description of the project
Summary
Ciboquadro aims to promote small agricultural realities and ecological awarness, thus creating a sound network between producers, restaurants and consumers. Ciboquadro offers high quality food products to restaurants, following a careful research and selection of the raw material and of the small Italian farm that produces it. To accomplish our idea, we organise personal interviews with farmers in order to know more about their lives, their values and the reasons that brought them to become food producers. After these interviews we create some visual contents, such as audio-video briefly explaining the story of these people, together with moving pictures of them and short text descriptions. In this way, we create impactful and immersive storytelling-contents, stressing the everyday challenges that these people. Our stories usually also include some "sustainability tips”, combined with information regarding the way in which these farmers deal with ethical critical aspects of the food value chain. Our last step foresees the creation of a platform, containing all the stories we made, which is accessible through a QR code. Our final idea is to buy products from the farmers and sell the combination of products and visual stories to restaurants. In this way, farmers will be able to share their stories, adding emotional value to their products, while restaurants will include high quality products in their menus, increasing the value of the customer experience (e.g. stories could represent conversation inputs, as well as providing reflections about the food value chain and its social-environmental impact). Finally, restaurants clients will be enjoying an immersive and complete journey through the food he/she is consuming, increasing its knowledge about food value and the impact that food choices can have on both planet and society. Moreover, we plan to create a strong and effective communication through our social channels, talking about sustainability and social them.
Key objectives for sustainability
Our main sustainability goal is to spread awareness about the environmental and social impact of the agri-food sector, encouraging consumers to implement in their lives the necessary cultural changing for the achievement of the sustainable goals proposed by the European Green Deal. To be effective, we will avoid the “data/information bombing approach” (which could be unproductive) relying instead on an emotional and empathic aspect. In fact, we believe that being aware of the food producers lives and struggles, leads costumers to make deeper reflections on the food chain topics. Therefore, it is essential to combine the “visual meeting with the producer" with the physical act of eating their quality products. In this way the client experiences an interactive meal, fostering constructive interactions among table companions. We also plan to create a videogame for children with will be available on our platform (eventually also with the possibility to include other players, thus promoting interaction during the meal. Our videogame would include both the sustainable and social aspects of the food value chain, possibly linked with the farmer stories and with some agricultural basic notions. Moreover, bringing together small farmers, restaurants and consumers through our network, we will create a community based on positive value creation. By doing this, we will encourage producers to increase sustainable practices in their work, granting at the same time a constant and fair purchase of their products. Furthermore, our platform will invite restaurants to implement positive practices (e.g., reducing food waste, choosing wisely their suppliers) granting a reward in terms of visibility and transparency through our communication channels.
To stimulate reflection and spread awarness on the ecological and socialthemes we will implement also a strong communication on our social networks (Instagram and Facebook) through posts, stories and short videos improving our storytelling
Key objectives for aesthetics and quality
We promote a completely new way of thinking and talking about food and sustainability.
Through the creation of moving and impactful stories, we want to raise awareness among people. Meal consumption at restaurants could become a whole new constructive experience, enriched with interactive acknowledgment and education. Trough the combination of the physical act of eating, the “meeting” with the producers and the positive convivial atmosphere, we want to create the perfect set-up for a conversation on sustainability topics. This will guarantee an immersive experience, combining passive and positive sensorial perception with active creativity, based on the interaction among table companions.
This leads to an ecological aesthetic perception, which rather than being focused on objects it is oriented to processes. More specifically, we want to invite consumers to feel part of the whole food value chain process, giving them the possibility to become active participants. In this way they will become aware of the key role of their own food choices, learning to live in correspondence with the world and starting to think in an ecological way.
Our social network will be an extension of this process, proposing beautiful and stimulating contents to engage with citizens, providing food for thoughts and encouraging sharing of emotions, thoughts and experiences.
Key objectives for inclusion
Ciboquadro represents an important step further for the creation of an inclusive and fair society. Through our stories we stress out the importance and the struggles of being an agricultural entrepreneur, often ignored by consumers. The creation of these stories will allow people to recognise the value of these figures, thus re-evaluating their role in the society and their rights within the political debate. This process will promote a growing attention toward politics, aiming at creating a sustainable and inclusive development. We believe that the practical implementation of the inclusive growth principles will only be possible by educating and involving citizens. For this reason, since the mobilisation of public opinion and the creation of an attentive mass is extremely complex, our stories would smooth the process thanks to the emotional engagement with people. In this context, the selection of products, producers and restaurants is strategic and meticulous, aiming at rewarding virtuous agricultural realities. At the same time, we strongly believe that it is essential to also consider those small producers who, due to greediness or lack of economic resources, are unable to implement sustainable practices. By creating a sound network, we want to sustain these realities, encouraging them to take positive and necessary sustainable changes. We aim to create a social enterprise that grants a right share of value, respecting producers and consumers. To guarantee the transparency of the value chain and raise customer awareness also on the economic aspects regarding the process of selling-buying, we want to create "transparent labels” (visible on our platform) showing the exact redistribution of value among the actors in the chain. Finally, we plan to create stories that can also be used by people with disabilities, guaranteeing both an interactive and enjoyable content for them.
Innovative character
Ciboquadro is innovative under three main aspects:
• Firstly, the stories are made available to the final user by simply using his/her mobile phone to scan the QRCode. The CLOUD software that is behind the scenes offers authoring tools that enable our team to create stories in an easy and collaborative environment. The underlying database stores information (footage, photos, speech, music and texts) that our mobile App renders on the fly to deliver the various slides each story is made of. This architecture permits modifications and re-elaboration of stories in a matter of seconds. The development of a modular and scalable platform is a strategic task that we decided to carry out in-house; In this way we are able to promptly respond to customer needs, to quickly iterate and redefine interfaces and to easily scale computational resources when needed.
• The second innovative aspect is related to our will to discuss the main environmental and social challenges regarding the agri-food sector. We believe in the revaluation of the figure of the agricultural entrepreneur and in the central role played by its choices. We aim to create a link between farmers and consumers, not only related to the raw material (the final output of the value chain), but also to the human value behind the product. Finally, the fact of abandoning the data/notion information-based approach for a more immersive and empathic communication based on the human value is the core of our innovative approach.
• Thirdly, we are aware of the potential economic possibility of our model, but we aim to create a social enterprise based on the concept of “Innovability”, combining innovation and sustainability within the whole value chain. In this regard, the creation of “transparent labels” are strategic, assuring a fair reward to customers, restaurant managers and farmers, which is nowadays one of the main dark spot in the food value chain.
