Introduction: Short food supply chains are an innovative sustainable approach emerging to address global food supply challenges. A short supply chain is defined as a »supply chain« that includes a limited number of economic operators committed to cooperation, local economic development and close geographical and social relations between producers, processors and consumers. Purpose: The purpose of this master's thesis is to explore examples of good practices and innovative approaches in short food supply chains through a survey conducted among food producers and to identify the needs for know-how information and wishes related to short food supply chains. Based on the identified needs, learning content for stakeholders shall be prepared. Methods: The master's thesis consists of a theoretical and an empirical part. The literature for theoretical background was obtained through a review of peer-reviewed and scientific publications. In the empirical part, a quantitative standardized questionnaire survey method was used. An electronic version of the questionnaire was created using the Google Forms web tool. The questionnaire in electronic form was sent to the e-mail addresses of 160 registered food producers at the national level. Results: 50 Slovenian food producers participated in the research. More than half of the respondents work in the field of agriculture. The production or processing of fresh fruit, fresh vegetables and non-alcoholic beverages (juices) is predominant among the types of crops and products. Seasonal conditions have a significant impact on the industry. The producers use different sales channels and innovative approaches in their activities. The producers demonstrated a general knowledge of short food supply chains. The producers face obstacles and challenges in carrying out their activities. They are eager to receive education or training to develop their activities. Discussion and conclusion: Reviewing the Slovenian and foreign literature, we did not find any research that would deal with short food supply chains to such an extent from the perspective of food producers. The research we carried out is very useful, as it provided key information on the situation of short food supply chains in Slovenia. Our findings show that there is still a lot of room for development in the field of short food supply chains in Slovenia.
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