On the 6th of March the NICHE partners met for the 4th time in Toruń, Poland, to discuss their action plans to be undertaken in the second phase of the project. It was the last meeting of the NICHE steering committee in the phase 1 of the project.
The action plans will be soon accomplished and ready to put into practice. After almost three years of knowledge exchange and elaborating common conclusions, the next two years will be dedicated to implementation and monitoring of the planned actions.
The main issues tackled in the action plans presented by the partners are promotion of the local products on internal and external market, facilitating regional networks of producers, cohesion of tourist and culinary routes. Many of these efforts demand commitment from local stakeholders. The necessary know-how have been learnt through so far project partners’ cooperation and thanks to staff exchange – visits of the local producers in the partners’ regions.  This exchange of knowledge and observation of good practices might in the future lead to a new project tackling issues of healthy food production. 
The NICHE partners took an occasion to see more examples of high quality food production in Kujawsko-Pomorskie Voivodeship. They visited the Orchard Farm Klimkiewicz in Wtelno, (http://www.klimkiewicz.com.pl/p/soki). The producer offers apple juice produced from fruits grown in thier own farm. The biological methods used in the production process help to receive healthy products. The laboratories of Sadkiewicz Culinary Academy in Bydgdoszcz were the last point of the study visit. Innovative instruments used for cereals quality control help to obtain the best bread and are used in many countries worldwide (http://zbpp.com.pl/index_en.php).
NICHE – Building innovative food value chains in region is a project financed by European Regional Development Fund through Interreg Europe Programme. The partnership wants to achieve an average 15 % increase in the adoption of research and innovation solutions by food sector companies in their regions to give response to the demand of this sector identified as high-potential sector for their smart growth.