Short Food Supply Chain in Brabant: personal, sustainable but not digital

11/25/2025 - 16:11

An ambitious project is currently underway in Brabant under the banner of Next Level Logistics, aimed at improving transport and logistics, with special attention to the short food supply chain. In collaboration with LCB (Logistics Community Brabant), the project explores how digitalisation might make this chain more efficient and sustainable. But recent field research reveals: most farmers do not feel the need to perform additional digital tasks as it does not add anything to their existing logistical processes.

Expertise

What is the short food supply chain?
The short food supply chain focuses on minimising the distance, both in kilometres and in links, between producer and consumer. Think of farmers delivering directly to restaurants or consumers. This model has clear advantages: fresher food, more transparency, and a stronger sense of connection between farmer and customer.

Digital tools? Preferably not
Within the project, a platform was introduced to connect farmers and hospitality businesses. The idea: digital tools could help organise these local chains more efficiently so that the short chain can also become financially sustainable . However, interviews with eight farmers show that their incentive to embrace digitalisation is very low. Orders are usually placed via WhatsApp, deliveries follow personal routines, and there is little enthusiasm for digital dashboards or apps.

Farmers deliberately choose this personal approach. They know their customers, build trust, and want to preserve human contact. A platform acting as a middleman is seen more as an obstacle than a help. As one farmer put it: “I want to ask what they thought of the yoghurt. I won’t hear that through an app.”

Efficiency versus values
Although the short chain appears sustainable, it is not always more efficient than regular, large-scale food supply chains. The latter are often tightly organised and data-driven. In contrast, short chains rely on organically developed logistics, manual planning, limited scale, and low flexibility. Farmers tailor their production and delivery based on what works for them. Which is not always what is convenient for the customer.

Still room for innovation?
Despite the farmers’ reluctance with regards to digitalisation, the project explores solutions that align with current practice to have the best of both worlds. For example, AI tools that automatically convert WhatsApp conversations into usable data to efficiently plan the short supply chain, or an AI chatbot that smartly matches supplier offerings to available transport capacity. This technology can operate in the background, without disrupting the personal contact that farmers value.

The ambition is to develop an organically driven network that minimises food waste, enables shared transport and storage, and allows for scalable growth in a natural way. A potential scenario is a ‘happy planner’ and AI that optimises delivery routes based on the preferences of both farmer and customer.

Conclusion
Digitalisation is not necessarily the future for every sector. In the short food supply chain, it's all about trust, relationships, and values. Technology should support this, not take the lead. As the fieldwork shows: innovation only succeeds when it starts from the reality of those who are meant to use it.