The kick off meeting of the thematic project FOOD4HEALTH – Sustainable and innovative Agrofood and fisheries value chain for MSME’s cross-border market, cofunded under the Interreg IPA CBC Italy-Albania-Montenegro Programme, took place in Tirana, on 2 October 2019, in the presence of all project partners. 

The overall objective of FOOD4HEALTH is to enhance the competitiveness of MSMEs and favour the access to the market in the cross-border area through the improvement of production techniques, the transfer, sharing and adoption of European quality standards and the enhancement of typical and traditional products of the agri-food sector and fisheries. 

The territorial cooperation among the partners can contribute in increasing the innovation community networking and finally give more opportunities to SMEs and start-ups to access funds and international markets. The common tools envisaged by the project will enable the project partners to achieve all these results through the best practices exchange and knowledge transfer

The project has a duration of 37 months starting from 1 June 2019.

Ministry of Agriculture of Albania will lead the FOOD4HEALTH project in partnership with Agricultural Technology Transfer Centre of Korca- Albania,  Agricultural Technology Transfer Centre of Vlora- Albania, International Centre for Advanced Mediterranean Agronomic Studies (Mediterranean Agronomic Institute of Bari, Italy), Puglia Region - General Secretariat of the Presidency  “Health Market Place”  – Italy, Region of Molise-Italy, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development – Montenegro and Montenegrin Institute for Marine Biology  – Montenegro.