Hyvärinen, J. Teräs, S., Vaajakallio, K., Fräki, J & Roto, V. (2012). Enhancing the transparency of the local and organic food supply network. A position paper to be presented in CHI2012 workshop on Food and Interaction Design, Austin, USA, 6 May 2012.

1. Enhancing the transparency of the
local and organic food supply network
Jaana Hyvärinen Johanna Fräki Abstract
Aalto University, School of Arts, Makumaku Ltd The interest in organic and local food is increasing both
Design and Architecture Fredrikinkatu 47 for health and sustainability reasons. Practical reasons
Hämeentie 135 C FI 00100 Helsinki, Finland often prevent consumers to buy food directly from
FI 05650 Helsinki, Finland johanna.fraki@gmail.com producers, and because of the relatively small
jaana.hyvarinen@aalto.fi production volumes of individual producers it is difficult
for producers to have access to the assortments of
Sampo Teräs Virpi Roto supermarket chains. Because of this buyers and sellers
Helsinki Institute of Information Aalto University, School of Arts, of local and organic food need to create new types of
Technology HIIT Design and Architecture collaborative networks to deliver the food to
PO Box 19215, Hämeentie 135 C consumers. Unlike the highly automated supply
FI 00076 Aalto, Finland FI 05650 Helsinki, Finland networks in traditional food industry, these supply
sampo.teras@aalto.fi virpi.roto@aalto.fi networks should remain short, human, and ethical
without compromising their viability. We have
Kirsikka Vaajakallio investigated the supply network of a new web store for
Aalto University School of Arts, local and organic food products in Finland. In this
Design and Architecture paper, we discuss the special aspects of these small-
Hämeentie 135 C scale, sustainability-driven supply networks both from
FI 05650 Helsinki, Finland the supply network actors’ and consumers’ perspective.
kirsikka.vaajakallio@aalto.fi
Keywords
Transparent supply network, Organic food, Local food,
Practice-centered design
Copyright is held by the author/owner(s).
Food and Interaction Design workshop at Introduction
CHI 2012, May 6, 2012, Austin, TX, USA. Consumers are increasingly concerned about the origin
of food, food safety and properties of the food they buy

2. 2
and eat [1]. This implies an increasing need for new services. One of the case studies concentrates on a
transparent information on the entire food supply Finnish web store Makumaku1 that aims to help small
network. High-tech solutions for making the network and medium sized organic food producers to get their
transparent exist, but they require not only products to consumers, since it is hard for small
investments but also commitment and a change of producers to find their way to superstores. The idea is
practices from all stakeholders. In the case of local and to facilitate a supply network that would minimize the
organic food, however, the producers are often small delay from harvest to kitchen.
and medium-size, and the delivery network is simpler
than typical traditional supply networks. We need to Currently, Makumaku sells local and organic food
consider how much investment to put into new products from over 70 Finnish producers to consumers
technology and learning new practices in this context. and restaurants. The weekly delivery service operates
around the Helsinki metropolitan area. Customers can
By supply network we refer to the system of choose between home delivery and picking the food
organizations involved in moving a product from a from one of the fixed delivery locations. Currently
producer to a consumer. Typical stakeholders in the Makumaku has over 28 fixed delivery locations, mostly
food supply network are: producer, processor, in connection with existing stores and restaurants..
distributor, wholesaler, retailer and consumer. Supply
network may also include post-consumer links such as The research approach in the Makumaku case was two
waste disposal and recycling. Making the food supply folded. One part of the research focused on the supply
network transparent helps consumers to verify that the network, as reported in this paper. The other part
provided food is either local and/or organic as explored how consumers’ daily food related practices
promised. In addition, transparency allows supply and values could be acknowledged and utilized in
network partners to collaborate more efficiently. service design. Consumers’ appreciations were studied
via an online survey (100 responses) and via design
In this paper we address the question: What are the probes [2] with follow-up interviews with 8 participants.
special supply network transparency challenges of a One finding of the study focusing on people’s daily food
local and organic food web store? We will discuss this related practices was that people were concerned with
topic through a case study that is part of ongoing the food safety and taste, traceability of the products
design research project “InPractice” (2011-2012). as well as environmental and ethical issues, which
naturally affects the design of the supply network. Due
Makumaku case to space limitations in this paper, we will focus on the
InPractice project as a whole studies how people’s daily second part of the research, the supply network.
practices and values can be understood and
acknowledged when developing existing and designing 1
http://www.makumaku.fi

3. 3
Study procedure and found challenges dealers, so they are forced to cope with several
The supply network research aimed at developing different systems (and product labeling practices).
collaboration between supply network partners by Organic food production is heavily regulated, so
enhancing the supply chain transparency. The study producers need to provide detailed information about
began by identifying the actors of the supply network the production process for authorities as well. The
and analyzing the collaborative activities between usage of various and often incompatible tools and
them. We used interviews with Makumaku techniques for information sharing, communication and
representatives for identifying supply network actors coordination leads easily to mistakes and inefficient
and activities. In addition, we used contextual inquiry operations, because the information is usually
technique [4] to study the activities related to a typical transferred from one system to another manually.
weekly order-delivery process in 6 supply network
organizations in more detail (Makumaku, 2 producers, a Small organizations that often have limited information
logistics company and 2 delivery providers). The technology resources and skills, find information
conceptual framework of activity theory was used to technology systems enabling network transparency
focus the data gathering and guide the analysis [3]. infeasible due to their cost and the learning effort. In
The data revealed challenges related to the information our study as well, sometimes only one person on the
sharing, communication and coordination between farm was capable of using the Internet and only a small
different actors and organizations. part of the daily work took place in the office. Thus,
providing communication tools only on the Internet
The supply network built around the Makumaku web does not fit in the current practices of the farmers.
store is composed of producers, logistics partners, Simple solutions such as dedicated paper forms or very
delivery location providers, and consumers. The actors short text messages may work better in this context.
of the network are geographically distributed, largely
autonomous and heterogeneous in terms of their Introducing product specific international article
operating environment and goals. numbers (EAN) are aimed at improving supply chain
transparency by helping in product identification,
Due to the distributed nature of the network, the tracking and tracing. With very small and seasonal
interaction between the different actors happens often producers, however, EAN codes would cause losing at
intermittently, takes place in different locations least some of the diversity of the current product
(sometimes without access to Internet), and is offering.
mediated by various tools and techniques (traditional
paper forms, phone calls, text messages, free Lessons learned
document-sharing and editing applications). The The key development area in local and organic food
producers sell their products through a number of business is not only the efficient production and

4. 4
logistics, but also ensuring ethical and environmentally Conclusions
sustainable production and delivery process. These We studied supply network built around a Finnish local
companies are not capable of competing with big and organic food web store, and found that supply
organizations in efficiency and economies of scale, so chain transparency improves most naturally if we can
the development should aim to the customer need find the means to engage network partners in
fulfillment and environmental and ethical effects of the collaboration by enabling and encouraging interaction
supply network processes. between different actors.
Importance of information sharing, communication and The local organic food supply network context provides
coordination is emphasized when diverse and intriguing opportunities for practice- and value-driven
geographically distributed supply network partners are design. We believe similar solutions may be applicable
aiming at collaborative advantage. When collaborating also for other supply networks composed of small and
with small and medium size organizations with limited medium size organizations.
information technology skills and resources it is crucial
to understand that implementing new information Acknowledgements
sharing, communication and coordination tools We thank Tekes (The Finnish Funding Agency for
successfully require commitment and change of Technology and Innovation), for funding this work.
practices from all stakeholders. Even though
information technology plays essential role in the References
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