The Champion SMEs of the call for the second target country, Japan were selected by the F2F Health Matters project consortium. SMEs get the opportunity to expand their business and to start a new internationalisation journey. Three types of dedicated internationalisation support will be provided: Commercial Lead Support, Travel Aid and Elite Program.

<strong>Commercial Lead Support</strong>

This support consists of the financing of personalised consultancy services of commercial prospection on the target countries. SMEs will receive personalised support from external service providers with excellent market knowledge. The selected SMEs are the following: MEDARO (Belgium), Daflori (Portugal), PROCIDYS (France), FelixRem s.r.o. (Slovakia), Bodega Líquido Gallaecia (Spain).

<strong>Travel Aid</strong>

The next support consists of a contribution of 2.000€ for travel and subsistence costs resulting of the participation in the collective internationalisation missions to the targeted countries. SMEs are supported to meet potential business partners, leading to new business agreements and promising collaborations. The selected SMEs are the following: Bioxtract (Belgium), Asabe (Belgium), Anta de Cima - Sociedade Agrícola Unipessoal Lda (Portugal), Wild Bunch & Co. (Portugal), Cake Lucky SAS (France), POLARIS (France), Marie Morin (France), Vino Peter Lisicky s.r.o. (Slovakia), SPACElab s.r.o. (Slovakia), Opre’ Cidery s.r.o. (Slovakia), Real Conservera Española, S.L. (Spain) and Dairypet, S.L. (Spain).

<strong>Elite Program</strong>

All the selected SMEs are part of the Elite SMEs coaching and training programme, which will provide training courses for the Japanese market, coaching and access to a dedicated SMEs Community.

<strong>How to get support for your internationalisation journey?</strong>

The next call will be launched in spring 2023. All information about the calls, application, and selection process can be found on the project website in <a href="https://f2f-project.eu/get-involved/"> GET INVOLVED section.</a>

1st mission to Canada The Champion and Elite SMEs of the first call already received the internationalisation support within F2F Health Matters project. The internationalisation mission to Canada took place in November 2022. Feedback from individual SMEs participating at the mission is available <a href="https://f2f-health-matters-community.b2match.io/page-831">here.</a>

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<em>The European project F2F Health Matters is an internationalisation accelerator for innovative agri-food SMEs. It is driven by an alliance of five European clusters: Wagralim (Belgium), Clusaga (Spain), Bioeconomy Cluster (Slovakia), InovCluster (Portugal), and Valorial (France). It is funded by the European Programme for the Competitiveness of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (COSME) within the framework of the European Strategic Cluster Partnerships - Going International (ESCP-4i).</em>