Description
EWA is a pan-European initiative by EIT Food designed to close the gender gap in the agrifood sector. It supports women entrepreneurs at the earliest stage of their business journey – from idea to market-ready concept. The programme runs over six months and combines hands-on training, personalised mentoring, and peer networking. Participants develop skills in business planning, marketing, value proposition, and customer segmentation, while working closely with experienced mentors to refine their ideas and build sustainable business models. Each national cohort selects a small group of women with innovative agrifood ideas, ensuring focused and tailored support throughout. The programme culminates in a Demo Day, where participants pitch their ventures to a public audience. Women play a crucial role in the development and economic growth of rural communities across Europe, yet remain significantly underrepresented in leadership and entrepreneurship. EWA aims to change that – turning untapped potential into real, lasting impact across the food system.
Why this matters for Grapes of Change
The EWA programme is directly relevant to Grapes of Change because Croatia’s wine sector is shaped by small family producers and micro-wineries where women are present but rarely visible in ownership or leadership data. By demonstrating a structured, replicable model for bringing women into agrifood entrepreneurship with financial support and professional networks, EWA provides a clear blueprint for wine-sector adaptation. The programme addresses under-representation in management – one of the three core GBV-adjacent themes in the Croatian desk analysis – and shows that targeted capacity-building with seed funding can move women from informal roles to acknowledged leadership. Its multi-country design also means that lessons from the Croatian cohort travel directly into the wider European community of practice that Grapes of Change seeks to build.
Lessons learned
The 2024 edition demonstrated the strong appetite among Croatian women for structured entrepreneurial support in agrifood – with over 40 applicants competing for just 10 places, signalling demand that exceeds current programme capacity. The one-to-one mentoring model proved a key strength, pairing each participant with a dedicated mentor matched to her specific needs. The diversity of ideas – spanning urban farming, freeze-drying, organic spices, and regenerative agriculture – confirmed that the programme successfully attracted innovators across a wide range of agrifood sub-sectors.
Sources and further information
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EIT Food EWA programme
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A Woman Can Be
- Croatian desk analysis: POKRENI IDEJU (IHZG), GoC Best Practice Database, 2026