solidarity group was born in 2010 in Zagreb, under the name " GSR Srijeda ", starting in this way the name " GrupaSolidarneRazmjene- GSR ", which literally translated means " solidarity exchange group ", but for convenience and because of unity within the project Social Start Ups will be denoted by the acronym " EPG ".
What is worth highlighting from the beginning is that the EPG Srijeda was a group composed primarily of consumers, who have joined the group with the main aim to get healthy food at cheaper prices. Moreover, they have formed a mailing list that day by day has continued to become more and more extensive, but did not carry out any checks on the producers and did not have any direct cooperation with producers, which resulted in a trade and exchange of products of all kinds, and not more regarding genuine and healthy products. In the end, the group stopped to work at the beginning of 2014.
Within the project " Fine nitilokalnihrazvoja- The thin threads of local developments ", in 2012, in collaboration with the Italian EPG " Calci ", established in the province of Pisa, it was initiated the founding of a series of new ethnic purchasing groups: EPG Jato( Zagreb), Pula EPG, EPG Pod Uckun( River) and EPG Cakovec, which was unsuccessful. The project partners were the Association SMAG, initiator of the first EPG, the associations of ecological producers IEP from Pula and Izvor from Sisak, as well as the associations Zmergo from Opatija and Aris from Zagreb. The study visit in Tuscany implemented under the project was of crucial importance, beacause it allowed the initiators of Croatian EPGs to see the functioning of the Italian EPGs( GAS). It was here that it began to develop a different concept of solidarity groups( EPG Pula), which is supported by the associations of ecological producers and is based on the collaboration between producers and consumers, from the example of the CSA( Communitysupported agriculture) and AMAP( Association pour le Maintiend ' une Agriculture Paysanne).
On the initiative of the Pula EPG, EPG Porec and EPG Rovinj were born. From the EPG Porec later was formed the EPG Visnjan. Due to the high number of members, two groups divided the EPG Pula: EPG Šijana and EPG Rojc. Subsequently, 4 news EPG divided The EPG Rijeka( Pod Učkun): Rijeka West, Pod Učkun East, Drenova and Opatija. In Split was born the EPG Bioniri, EPG Osijek in Osijek, while in Zagreb, following the dissolution of the EPG Srijeda and the enlargement of the idea of the solidarity groups were formed EPG Pozitiva, Pušlek, Tresnja, Maksimir and Waldorf, being the formation of the last one still in procedure.
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