Pacman Chose This Framework Insofar As It Is Able to Set Actions Indentifying New Opportunities

INTRODUCTION

The supply value chain in the agro-food market is a framework in which could be integrated operating and strategic criteria which make easier the choice of objectives which would optimize the supply and demand relation.

PACMAn chose this framework insofar as it is able to set actions indentifying new opportunities of development in the systemic relation, therefore interactive, between involved agents, not only in the product creation but also in everything having a bearing on the supply shaping.

The convergent management of processes and microprocesses speeding up the relation between the various agents, means the systemic involvement between all of them, and we can’t consider the latter as an usual way of doing things in the case of the Valencian agro-food industry.

Among the actions mounted by the PACMAn project, the call for the meeting PAISAJES COMPARTIDOS resulted in a thought about peculiarities of the involvement of the various agents in the supply creation in specific segments: olive oil, dessert grape and cereals transformed in “cocas” and “coquetas”.

Chosen because of its idiosyncrasy, as a consequence of an interpretation of peculiarities which would make possible the differentiation, with the mark of the territory as a strategic factor, the various segments have oponed the Doors to the involvement of the processing industries in several segments of the supply, not only the one linked to the food, but also those having to do with health, cosmetics, environment, etc.

As this document would show, thanks toPAISAJES COMPARTIDOS was generated the recognition of “shared leaderships”when, by the profile of its action, the leader entity or company canbe linked to the agro-food supply identity, as it could happen in the habitat area, the financing or the R&D ones.

The report “SHARED LEADERSHIPS/PACMAN ACTION” collects as well as considerations made on the occasion of previous meetings in different places, or with entities and companies linked to some segments, together with the contributions made in various environments of debate settled by the Meeting: therogle,in which took part a small Group of chosen experts; thepati obert,in which could participate all people interested in the matter tackled; thetast,where were discussed nutricional characteristics, dietetics and organoleptic onesof products which could be consumed; and themercat,in which was asked the consumer’s perception of the supply taking into account the territory as a strategic factor.

In short, PAISAJES COMPARTIDOS apart from the name of the meeting, has been the expression which allowed us to make clear with criteria, objectives and tasks the framework which intends to mount so PACMAn project, knowing that the result would be a great virtual platform of information and knowledge management,which would have an operating central setting and as many strategic settings as regions participating, one of them being the Comunitat.

The used language to make explicit the technical criteria in a stated social context, intended to approach a design of the expressions and actions, equidistant from the academism and from the popular culture, which would get the involvement of agents of different categories: agricultural producers, processing agents, industrialits, product editors, shopkeepers, municipal markets, infrastructures gents, graduates, local development agents, cooks, manufacturers of products like packing, appropriate furnishings, and, above all, consumers.

The meeting, on the other hand, intended to clearly show some of the greatest weaknesses and many of the threats about which the agrofood sector must be aware, especially concerning the deployment of the processing and industrial activities.

I People

All along the Meeting we were discovering new words in every corner.And words are people, as are markets, companies, city halls, cities…Like that, during many days we shared information and decisions about people’s commitment with all these shared landscapes and their smart management.

This was one of the first driving notions of the Meeting. The interaction between the various supply value chain agents is possible only when prople do know the importance of this convergent action about definition and management of the processes which they are loinked with.

And then, conscious of the many things we can’t change on our own, we decided to share decidimos compartir el empeño de construir el futuro desde un objetivo a otro: gesto a gesto. Operando sobre los microprocesos estratégicos, identificados en la relación sistémica que se produce en cada área de intervención: el producto, la identidad, el escenario tecnológico, el financiero, etc.

Conscious of the current crisis situation and of the dimensionof the available resources and capacities, we share with Enrique Vila-Matas that "the proof of a higher intelligence is the ability to keep two opposite ideas in mind at the same time, and still have the capacity to work.I have known and I keep knowing people able to see that things areirremediableand, however, who are still determined to act so as to make them different.In fact, this has been my philosophy since I entered the adulthoodand understood that improbable, plausible, often “impossible”were however within my reach."

We talk about this kind of people.The ones who decided to make things being different.Ready to grab the tools with their hands and build a new pathbetween the landscapes, breaking the limit between the functions and position of each one of the value chain agents; solving disagreement cores and making compatible innovation and the systemic profile of the relations.

They are not anonymous people, they are businessmen and professionals bringing criteria from an individual knowledge, and managing teams which enrich us with an important collective knowledge.Therefore, we’ll look for identify them, not withthe intention to add new icons to the Valencian agro-food supply identity, but to make easier a communication able to create new supply assets from the private act, from the strategic orientation which each company intends to adopt.

II The territory

The words we chose during 15 days made up a song which registers each particle of the PACMAn ACTION, in defense of the territory’s sustainability: the one we step every day, the one we visit on an experiential trip, the one we go all over with sport eagerness, the one we enjoy with people we love.

Furthermore when we refer to physical infrastructures, the PACMAn ACTION has to to reach to reshape business areas so that the city and the various territories which the city can border on would be object of an effective change: industrial, rural, wild,rugged, peripheral… As a result, the accomodation would be a shared condition. A cultural change which would stimulate the conception of the territory as a strategic factor.

Within the collective ideology,the territory has been object of a speculator approach which has moved to a use out of proportion in order to build new residential areas, blocking in many areas the deployment of the landscape del paisaje in all its aspects

PAISAJES COMPARTIDOS gave back to the agro – food supply management the purpose of people’s commitment with the territorial context itself, beyond the local mark the commitment must reach to the whole landscape , territorial areas and ecosystems in a global way.We’ll emúlate concrete actions as the action deployed in favor of the conservation of more than 5.000 thousand-year-old olive tres which spread in our region.

The sustainable development, that people interpret as an unavoidable element of the ecosystem itself, as well its economic variable; is the most important task that the PACMAn action has to display about the culture redefinition, that we consider as unavoidable in order to consolidate intercooperation, innovation and internationalization processes into the regional agro – food supply and therefore in the involved mediterranean regions’one.

The common factor which can renew attitudes in favor of the supply’s quality, it specificity, its identity; is the territory, understood not as “homeland” but as an activity field which regenerates farming, landscapes, fauna and actions so entailed, from the producing, industrial, business, prescribing, and smart purchaser’s perspective.

Among the actions that PAISAJES COMPARTIDOS warns as top priorities is the restoration of interaction models allowing the maintenance of a not intensive farming, the territories multi-purposing making compatible and respectful of the environment any human activity favoring accomodation and avoiding ecosystem’s degradation.

III Concerted action

Actions starting from resources and capacities identification in the interests of the supply’s quality, will take into account the concerted action between value chain’s agents as a catalyst of such profiles.

Said differently, we interpret the concerted management of the processes in which different agents meet involved, in this frame of systemic relation, as a catalyst of the assets of the supply, both the tangible ones and the intangibles.

The concerted action that will form a part of the strategic orientation of every company in its supply segment, will have to make the standardization compatible with the change management. It is impossible to seat the innovation management from a conception of the management standardized as paradigm. The current atmosphere of transfer of information and knowledge on the different markets, forces to a continued reformulation of the organizational routines, and of the models of management, not only of the strategic variable, also of the organizational one and the technological one.

In the case microcompanies and small enterprises, the conception of their belonging to a community that shares information, which converges on the definition and commercialization of the supply, is necessary a formalization of the compound action, which should be translated in a shared responsibility of the processes in which one interacts, eliminating the cores of disagreement.

Microprocesses acting with mechanisms of going and return of the information that they handle, in such a way that the opportune indicators are established, singularly between the area of generation and transformation of the product and the area of commercialization / restoration and prescription.

It happens, in the case of the selected segments, that contributions from the consumer can enrich notably the generation and transformation of the product and his derivatives, specially the conserves, the jams and the liquors, in two of the segments, and the baked one, the landfill or the united one in case of the cocas andcoquetas.
IV The product’s quality and the supply identity

In the exchanges of criteria supported byPAISAJES COMPARTIDOS we have differentiated in a careful way the product of the supply.

The product ensued from the farming or from the industrial transformation deserves a rigorous treatment preventing situations of deterioration or of distrust in its quality would take place. The guarantee must be especially a patrimony of the company. A politics of transparency and good government will always be the best modal.

The setting of other conduct guidelines like the actions of certification by accredited entity can add value to the perception of the product’s identity. The smart purchaser, to whom the segment of the product offers a veracious information, an opportune formation and the possibility of doing his valuations, will surely be the best guarantor of the product’s quality, which will make him see by means of his faithful correspondence in the consumption.

The supply is the consequence of the increase of the intangible assets that the product possesses, by means of the action of factors as packaging, communication of a cared information, by the generation of different forms of prescription, etc. And, specially, with the intelligent adjustment to the requirements of the demand.

V The differentiation

The food-processed product reaches its major distinction as supply in the consumption’s processes, singularly in the catering. The suitable communication on the part of the cook / waiter about the singular factors of the product and of its union in a cooked plate or with the fitting with other food, enriches the relation between the consumer and the product, its perception as distinguished supply differentiated from the organoleptic, nutritional and / or dietetic perspectives.

It is important to precisely know about all that information allowing to specifythe profile and the scope of the assets of the supply. Without need to exaggerate, without need to accompany the supply with a grandiloquent music, which in many occasions is seen by the buyer as an added ingredient that does not contribute anything to the experience of the consumption.

Actions allowing to spread the product as prizes, awards, etc can’t be considered as essential ingredients of the differentiation, since the experience of such circumstances remains overcome by the own experience of the consumption.

The purchaser perceives a product as differentiated when by means of communication he receives information helping him to enjoy it in some way: for its quality / pricerelation, for its intrinsic characteristics, for being an explicit reference of the sustainable attention of a territory, etc.

It is obvious that brand and associate information are the indicators of the identity of a concrete supply. It is in them, as consequence of a scrupulous follow-up of the demand’s profiles, in which we have to deposit the weight of the supply’s differentiation.

Let's underline, finally, the relevancy of a group already territorial, since it is the case of the D.O., already the consequence of an important deployment of the cooperation between the value chain agents, which could give place to a work of prescription differentiated in such situations as“gourmet”, in restaurants of a certain territory, in differentiated online trades, etc.

VI The shared landscapes

When we talk about PAISAJES COMPARTIDOS we refer to all the situations that a company has to incorporate in its supply and to those that one must incorporatein his commitment.

Landscapes having to see with the product’s profile; agricultural landscapes and the ecosystem with which they interact; industrial landscapes and their associate, technological elements, logistics/packaging, suppliers, etc.; commercial landscapes in all theirdimensions including those having to see with the internationalization of the supply; catering and prescription landscapes, etc.

The industrial company, the transforming company, has to be able to exercise a singular leadership in the heart of all these landscapes. But, also, it has to promote the recognition of a shared leadership, in such a way that every landscape, every area of activity, would be managed in an eloquent way by one o more agents well identified.

The processes of emulation must be continued. And in it the communication of the transferable knowledge has to have an unavoidable leading role.

The landscapes will be shared in a sustainable way insofar as they intend to define and affirm the balance between the ecosystem’s ingredients that every territory, every segment, every activity, every company, every person form.

The PACMAN ACTION is embedded in this frame of reference and, from the initial aim and in a short term, it will give place to strategic convergent microprocesses and generation of differentiated supplies by means of innovation and intercooperation.

The presence on the global market, the internationalization of the companies and of the supplies, will be the consequence of an increase in the determination to shape supply’s platforms of appropriate size and adapted to the requirements of the demand.

VII Olive oil

The olive oil supply in the region offers some peculiarities that the PACMAN ACTION considers to be the core of attention on which aims are established and microprocesses of action are defined.

All the olive oil produced in the region can be object of attention in the first phase. We will reject in the second phase the oil not being produced in suitable conditions, for what we obviously propose to count with the commitment of the farmers to manage to reduce the volume of the above mentioned oil.

The group of possibly involved agents will be identified in a progressive way while is generated the effective commitment of the peopleand of the producing companies, in this case collective or individual oil-mills.

The regional production of olive oil reaches the limited volume of 26 thousand tons. It is, nevertheless singular oil for his peculiarities that make it especially interesting.

We know an important number of olive varieties of autochthonous character and others imported that have been acquiring peculiarities for their entail to a climate and to an area making them different.

The PACMAN ACTION is going to focus on propitiating a correct treatment of the processes in order to identify and to prescribe the oils of extra virgin quality, first, from monovariety, secondly, at the time that the differentiated well mixtures, and the ecological ones thirdly.

The project will seek to promote the supply making converging the involved agents, taking the protection of the territory as a key orientation before the smart purchaser with criteria of sustainable development.

In the area of olive oil there are actions in favour of the development of a convergent industry, elaborating derivatives of olive tree, olive, and oil, in the areas of cosmetics, health, and in all its extension.