Active listening:  a process of analysing and evaluating what another person is saying to understand the speaker's feelings or the true meaning of the message.

Box scheme: the consumer purchases a box of goods every week, or in a defined period, which was produced at the given farm.

Brainstorming: a technique designed to foster group productivity by encouraging interacting group members to express their ideas in a non-critical fashion.

Brand: a brand is an identifying symbol, mark, logo, name, word, and/or sentence that companies use to distinguish their product from others. A combination of one or more of those elements can be utilized to create a brand identity. Legal protection given to a brand name is called a trademark.

Business Model Canvas: is a strategic management tool that lets you visualize and assess your business idea or concept. It is a one-page document containing nine boxes that represent different fundamental elements of a business. 

Business Plan: is a written document that describes in detail how a business — usually a startup — defines its objectives and how it is to go about achieving its goals. A business plan lays out a written roadmap for the firm from each a marketing, financial, and operational standpoint.

Code: a set of rules or symbols used to translate a message from one form to another. 

Communication competence:  an ability to take part in effective communication, which is characterized by skills and understandings that enable communication partners to exchange messages successfully.

Communication flow: a direction (upward, downward, horizontal) messages travel through the networks in an organization.

Community-supported agriculture: consists of a community of individuals who pledge support to a farm operation so that the farmland becomes, either legally or philosophically, the community's farm, with the growers and consumers providing mutual support and sharing the risks and benefits of food production. (US Department of Agriculture)

Conflict: a disagreement or argument between two or more people.

Culture: traditions and patterns of thought which are passed down through generations of people.

Decision Making: the individual or group process of choosing a preferred option through the identification of a decision that needs to be made, gathering and analysing information related to this decision, and weighing all available options before making a selection.

Decoding: a process of translating a message into the thoughts or feelings that were communicated. 

Food hygiene: food hygiene is defined as ‘the measures and conditions necessary to control hazards and to ensure fitness for human consumption of a foodstuff taking into account its intended use’.9 EU food law is science-based.

Food system: all the elements (environment, people, inputs, processes, infrastructures, institutions, etc.) and activities that relate to the production, processing, distribution, preparation and consumption of food, and the output of these activities, including socio-economic and environmental outcomes.

Ikigai: is a Japanese word whose meaning translates roughly to a reason for being, encompassing joy, a sense of purpose and meaning and a feeling of well-being. In business, the incorporation of the elements of ikigai to an entrepreneur’s focus is thought to yield the highest levels of entrepreneur’s engagement and productivity while also fostering job satisfaction and the highest possible value to the customer.

Interaction: an exchange of communication in which communicators take turns sending and receiving messages.

Intermediary: is a third party that acts between two or more trading parties and as a conduit for goods or services in the supply chain. 

Market-related risks: a risk concerning the potentiality of an investment decreasing as a result of market fluctuations.

Marketing mix: a marketing mix refers to the set of actions, or tactics, that a company uses to promote its brand or product in the market. The 4Ps make up a typical marketing mix - Price, Product, Promotion and Place.

Message: a stimulus to which meanings are attributed in communication.

Motivation: a desire or willingness to do something, such as to change behaviour. 

Natural risks: a risk resulting from natural occurrences which can negatively impact the world and its inhabitants.

Negotiations: a formal discussion method by which people seek a tolerable compromise to avoid devolution into a conflict.

Organizational structure: the formal configuration between individuals and groups concerning the allocation of tasks, responsibilities, and authorities within organizations. The formally prescribed pattern of interrelationships existing between the various units of an organization.

Pick your own: Is a type of farm gate direct marketing (farm-to-table) strategy where the emphasis is on customers doing the harvesting themselves.

Relocalization: is a strategy to build societies based on the local production of food, energy and goods, and the local development of currency, governance and culture. The main goals of relocalization are to increase community energy security, strengthen local economies, and improve environmental conditions and social equity. The relocalization strategy developed in response to the environmental, social, political and economic impacts of global over-reliance on cheap energy.

Risk Management: the process of identifying, understanding, evaluating, and ordering actual and possible risks to best determine how to act and how to use available resources in such a way the most positive result is achieved.

Role: a typical behaviour that characterizes a person in a specific social context. A position, or status, within a social structure that is shaped by relatively precise behavioural expectations (norms).

Rural Facilitator: an individual who stands between rural agricultural producers and markets and facilitates the supply and purchasing process.

Short food supply chain: a configuration of the food production-distribution-consumption process tailored to enabling local producers to place their goods on the market in a manner accessible to all potential customers.

Small-scale (smallholder) farming is defined in different ways that also vary from country to country. The most widely used definition of smallholder refers to those farms of less than 2.0 hectares.

Team: a group whose members have complementary skills and are committed to a common purpose or set of performance goals for which they hold themselves mutually accountable.

Time Management: the process of understanding time needs and planning accordingly to increase the overall efficiency of work, effective completion of work, and productivity while at work.

Value Proposition Canvas: is a tool that can help ensure that a product or service is positioned around what the customer values and needs.

Value(s): relatively general cultural prescriptions of what is right, moral and desirable. Values provide the broad foundations for specific normative regulation of social interaction.  A general, relatively long-lasting ideal that guides behaviour.

Vending machine: is an automated machine that provides products, typically fresh milk from local producers, located in several points of the city.

Vulnerability: people exposed to the possibility of being physically or emotionally harmed.