Approach

LOWINFOOD consortium have come together to deploy and implement innovative solutions to the food waste problem, by demonstrating their effectiveness and market potential. A portfolio of 14 innovations has been selected among promising solutions that have already been developed and tested by some partners, and includes technological tools and devices as well as organizational and managerial solutions.

The European Union establishes a scale, the TRL (Technology Readiness Level), to estimate the maturity of developing technologies. Lowinfood will improve the TRL of all the 14 innovations, including technological tools and devices as well as organizational and managerial solutions, to bring them closer to market and foster their adoption across value chains in several EU countries. They already have a minimum TRL of 4/5 (technologies that have been validated in the lab and in the relevant environment), and Lowinfood will upscale them up to TRL 7/8 (prototype demonstration in an operational environment, and completed and certified systems).

The aim of LOWINFOOD, “Multi-actor design of low-waste food value chains through the demonstration of innovative solutions to reduce food loss and waste”, is to provide the necessary demonstration and upscale to allow market replication. The core activities of the project are all focused on the evaluation of the efficacy of these innovations in reducing food losses and waste. The impact of the innovations will be evaluated considering the amount of food waste avoided as well as in environmental and socio-economic terms.

Fruits & vegetables, bakery products and fish value chains are selected as settings to apply the innovations as these perishable foods are particularly concerned by the issue of food waste. For each value chain, the upstream stages are considered in the demonstration of the innovations, from production to retailing. Another set of innovations is applied to the consumer level, with the aim to avoid the waste of all foods in out-of-home and at-home consumption.

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