In early December, the Ontario Tender Fruit Lab held its last workshop. The Lab, convened by the MaRS Solutions Lab and the Waterloo Institute for Social Innovation and Resilience (WISIR) with support from the Foundation, focused on a central question: how can we create a more resilient tender fruit economy in Ontario, in a way that provides social, economic, and environmental benefits?
The first phase of the lab process gathered ideas, information, and perspectives from the industry and was distilled into a Design Brief. The second phase convened a range of stakeholders over three workshops in the Niagara region, out of which emerged five strong prototypes for interventions in the system, co-created by participants who included producers, processors, retailers, researchers, and governments. Participants are taking on implementation of the prototypes with facilitation support from the MaRS Solutions Lab.
Learn more about the Lab here.