Not Just for Money. Crowdfunding a New Tool of Open Innovation to Support the Agro-Food Sector. Evidences on the Italian Market

The aim of this paper is to explore Crowdfunding as a new form of Open Innovation for SMEs and family business in the Agri-Food sector which usually do not have the same skills and tools to operate with conventional own Crowdsourcing methods. The study first has analyzed the principal literature and data available on Crowdfunding and the Food industry in order to describe the state of the art in this subject. Afterwards the focus of the paper goes to the analysis of the Italian case. The study used a deep qualitative approach because of an important lack of data and information on this subject. Nine depth interviews to key informants of the sector have been carried out investigating the market players, the normative regulations, the businesses models and the evolution of Crowdfunding for the Agri-Food industry in Italy. The research finds that Crowdfunding for Agri-Food industry can be important for both its profitability and the development of the sector, but that nowadays the Italian market is still in its primordial phase. Crowdfunding is very suitable for SMEs business which represents the vast majority of the Agri-Food Italian market and the use of this instrument could be beneficial for it.