---
id: ch6-field2fork
type: spine
title: "Field2Fork AI Hub: a 'Personal Farmer' for Foggia"
readingTime: 2
standalone: true
core: true
teaser: "Apulia went from focus groups to a hackathon to a working marketplace with an AI chat assistant. Here is what each step produced."
voice: universal
parent: null
diagram: fig-field2fork-ladder
recallQ: "What did Field2Fork AI Hub build for Foggia, and what kind of evidence does D6.3 report for it?"
recallA: "A dual-track marketplace (a catalogue store plus the 'Personal Farmer' AI chat assistant) with a zero-kilometre logistics engine that assigns local farm pickup hubs. The evidence is user-acceptance testing with 170 consumers and 23 producers (e.g. usability 4.44/5, 90.3% positive consumer evaluations), not sales or income data."
highlights:
  - "Built by EXO Soc. Cons. a r.l. with Distretto Agroalimentare Regionale (Italy) under the Develop call"
  - "The 'Personal Farmer' turns natural-language dietary and ethical preferences into shopping-cart scenarios"
  - "Pickups at local farm hubs replace home delivery: a zero-kilometre logistics model"
  - "Tested with 170 consumers and 23 producers; D6.3 reports acceptance scores, not sales"
status: accepted
concept: field2fork-ai-hub
conceptTitle: "Field2Fork AI Hub (Apulia)"
parents: short-food-supply-chains
lang: en
lens: italy
depth: standard
formalism: none
visuality: balanced
lengthBand: standard
genre: story
state: core
carriers: prose|diagram
---

Field2Fork AI Hub came out of the third rung of the PoliRural+ [open calls](#c/open-calls) in the province of Foggia, Apulia. Two earlier projects prepared the ground.

## Before the build: listen, then co-create

- **DEMO** (Outreach call, Cluster Srl) mapped needs: a producer survey, an online consultation on 26 February 2025 and five focus groups. It proposed **cooperative electric or refrigerated vehicle pooling through Local Action Groups** to tackle logistics and the low level of cooperation between entrepreneurs.
- **INCO** (Mobilise call, Virgolettere di Rocco Devito) ran a multi-actor hackathon that produced four prototypes. The winner, RuralTech Innovators' **Short Supply Chain Anti-Waste System**, matches consumer pre-orders with producers' seasonal margins and sends surplus or off-grade produce to local markets at a discount. The teams also tested PoliRural+ components such as UseAdvisor and [JackDaw](#c/jackdaw).

## What Field2Fork built

EXO Soc. Cons. a r.l., with Distretto Agroalimentare Regionale S.C.R.L., won a Develop-call grant to link small producers with urban buyers. The team collected product information from local producers into a first digital catalogue and built a **dual-track marketplace**:

- a conventional, search-optimised **catalogue store**;
- the **"Personal Farmer"**, a conversational assistant. The pilot website says it "interprets natural-language dietary and ethical preferences to generate multiple, personalized shopping-cart scenarios";
- a **zero-kilometre logistics engine** that matches the buyer's location with local farm pickup hubs, so orders are collected nearby instead of shipped.

The team promoted the platform through regional media (Foglie, L'Attacco), workshops and a webinar.

## What came out

Two user-acceptance surveys reached **170 consumers and 23 agri-food producers**. Consumers rated usability **4.44/5** and the Personal Farmer's information clarity **4.64/5**, and **90.3%** gave positive evaluations. Producers rated the platform's value **4.25/5**.

These numbers measure acceptance, not market impact. The D6.3 summary reports no sales volumes or changes in farm income. Whether the platform moves Apulia towards its target of +30% short-chain volume by 2028 still has to be measured.

The Apulia sequence of listening (DEMO), co-creating (INCO) and then building (Field2Fork) is the open-call ladder in miniature. Results across all calls are compared in [open-call results](#c/open-call-results).

**Sources:**
- D6.3 Comprehensive Report on Funded Activities and Impact Assessment, §3.2 Project results and achievements (Outreach: DEMO; Mobilise: INCO; Develop: Field2Fork AI Hub). [PDF](https://www.poliruralplus.eu/docs/437/D6.3_Comprehensive_report.pdf)
- PoliRuralPlus website, pilot page Italy – Apulia, "Open calls" (Field2ForkAI Hub). [poliruralplus.eu](https://www.poliruralplus.eu/)
- D7.3 Policy Brief No. 1, Annex 4 (2028 targets). [PDF](https://www.poliruralplus.eu/docs/349/D7.3_Policy_Brief_No.1.pdf)