Microbiomes fighting food waste through applicable solutions in food processing, packaging and shelf life

Proposals should aim for a holistic approach to realize the full potential that microbiome innovation has in terms of addressing food, health, environmental challenges and related economic problems and opportunities, to extend food shelf life and provide sustainable solutions in food processing and packaging.

Proposals are expected to address all the following:

• Develop microbial indicators of unexpected contaminants or environmental changes in food (e.g. during processing and packaging) and exploring possible microbial-based pathways to prevent food spoilage and reduce food loss and waste.
• Develop applicable microbiome business solutions for food packaging aiming to reduce/control/limit spoilage microorganisms in perishable foods to extend shelf life
• Develop, test and evaluate approaches that combine (meta)genomic or alternative microbiome indicator data in an inter- and transdisciplinary approach, to dynamically predict shelf life.
• Develop models and tools for controlling and predicting shelf life and risk of foodborne infection for improved decision making
• Demonstrate the safety of the developed approach, in accordance with relevant EU regulatory frameworks, related to its placing on the market.

Proposals must implement the 'multi-actor approach' and ensure adequate involvement of academia, research-technology organizations, small-medium enterprises (including start-ups), food businesses and other relevant actors of the value chain.

In order to achieve expected outcomes international cooperation is strongly encouraged, in particular in the framework of the International Bioeconomy Forum.

Proposals should include a dedicated task, appropriate resources and a plan on how they will collaborate with other projects funded under this topic and other relevant topics. They should participate in joint activities, workshops, focus groups or social labs, as well as organise common communication and dissemination activities and show potential for upscaling. Applicants should plan the necessary budget to cover these activities.

In this topic the integration of the gender dimension (sex and gender analysis) in research and innovation content is not a mandatory requirement.