Groceries that come from small, local producers are also well received where there is usually little uniqueness: on the shelves of national supermarket chains such as Rewe.

In Hesse, such regional products run there under labels such as "Landmarkt", "From your region" and "Good things from Hessen-Regal".

But how does the regionally produced apple juice and Hessian honey get there where environmentally conscious people then buy them?

And is this path as sustainable as one attributes to the product?

Kim Maurus

volunteer.

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Sixteen students from the Frankfurt University of Applied Sciences investigated these questions using a practical example in cooperation with the Rewe market in Wiesbaden-Erbenheim.

They examined the supply chains of 40 suppliers who market products under the local labels - and were initially surprised when they looked at the data.

"The ordering process often involves a lot of manual work," says student Paul Philipp.

"Before, I assumed that it would run fully automatically in the background." So that regional products actually arrive in the supermarket, a lot of initiative is required, for example from the store manager.

Ecological pros and economic cons

Professor Kerstin Wegener, who was in charge of coordinating the project, points to the special nature of the supply chains that the students examined: "Regional suppliers are often small, independent companies, some of which have joined together to form marketing companies, but which are also aware of the freedom to continue working independently.” This is comparable to companies in the tourism industry: “Small, medium-sized companies that often do not have the resources or the time to deal with what has long been centralized in larger companies. For example, bundling the sales function with one person who then drives the digitization of the process forward.

The aim of the study was to develop recommendations for suppliers on how they can make their supply chains more sustainable - without it becoming too expensive.

Because the ecological pros often include an economic cons.

"In our interviews, it turned out that almost all suppliers bring their goods to the market themselves with their own cars," says Philipp.

As a result, paths would also be driven twice.

Collecting regional goods first in a warehouse where products for the supermarket in question are already waiting to be transported is much more sustainable – “but it is unclear who would bear the costs for this”.

More realistic is the direct agreement between producers whose locations are close together.

"But that also requires a lot of coordination," says Wegener.

She is not sure whether this could be implemented so easily across the board.

An incentive for the merger could be the currently high cost of fuel prices.

The students also suggested an app to make agreements easier.

In an ideal world

According to student Philipp, the model in an ideal world would look like this: “An electric vehicle that drives through the small courtyards collects the goods, takes them to a warehouse and from there they are delivered to the markets every day.

The goods stay fresh, but the producer no longer has to visit five different markets in a city like Frankfurt in one day.”

But according to his professor, Wegener, it's probably not quite that simple.

Products such as goat cheese, for example, are not available from local producers all year round.

Juices, on the other hand, lasted a long time.

“The goods are very diverse, the requirements are different.

It's difficult to bundle everything together."