Systemic Innovations Towards a Zero Food Waste Supply Chain

Project Information

ZeroW

Grant agreement ID: 101036388

DOI

10.3030/101036388

Project closed

EC signature date 3 September 2021

Start date 1 January 2022

End date 31 December 2025

Funded under

• SOCIETAL CHALLENGES - Food security, sustainable agriculture and forestry, marine, maritime and inland water research, and the bioeconomy

Total cost

€ 12 932 881,25

EU contribution

€ 11 999 733,50

Coordinated by

INNOVATION COMMERCIAL PATHWAYS CLG
Ireland

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - ZeroW (Systemic Innovations Towards a Zero Food Waste Supply Chain)

Reporting period: 2023-07-01 to 2024-12-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

World hunger is on the rise, yet a third of all food produced globally goes to waste. The EU-funded ZeroW project aims to provide significant contributions to preventing and reducing food waste and enhancing the sustainability of food supply chains. Specifically, ZeroW will carry out the demonstration of diverse innovations in nine real-life food chains, employing a systemic innovation approach to effectively address the multidimensional issue of food waste. Moreover, the project will justify how scaling up the results of the demonstrated innovations, and combining them with appropriate policies, can bring us closer to the Green Deal’s 2030 food waste reduction goals.

ZeroW has set the ambitious target of playing a key role in the transition of current food systems towards halving Food Loss & Waste (FLW) by 2030 and reaching near-zero FLW by 2050.

ZeroW provides significant impacts through the demonstration of innovations in nine real-life food chains, by employing a systemic innovation approach, to effectively address the multidimensional issue of FLW. This involves:
(i) pre-identifying systemic innovations, that incorporate multiple interlinked dimensions (process, organisational, strategy, marketing, product, technological, governance, etc.), which are tested and demonstrated;
(ii) steering the evolution of innovations towards higher levels of systemic readiness and impact, using a Living Lab co-creation and multi-actor collective learning approach;
(iii) enhancing the Living Lab actors’ innovation advancement capability with shared resources facilitating new ways and means of cooperating and co-developing innovations;
(iv) developing context-specific trajectories for the systemic innovations (from ideation to scaling-up and commercialisation) leading to the provision of currently missing end products and services that align with consumer attitudes, food actor needs and policy trends.

Moreover, ZeroW establishes a clear ‘FLW impact trajectory’, from demonstrator results (2025), scaled up to meet the F2F 2030 goals, and steered through a ‘just transition pathway’ towards a near-zero FLW in 2050.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

ZeroW has made significant progress in reducing Food Loss and Waste (FLW) by advancing systemic innovations and establishing a strong foundation. In its first 18 months, the project launched nine Systemic Innovations Living Labs (SILLs), each focused on planning activities and implementing demonstrator solutions:
- SILL1 FLW monitoring & assessment
- SILL2 Innovative sustainable and smart fresh food packaging
- SILL3 Wasteless greenhouse solutions
- SILL4 Mobile food valorisation as a service
- SILL5 Ugly food identification, shelf-life assessment & valorisation
- SILL6 FLW reduction through data-driven production process optimisation
- SILL7 LW reduction through efficient food banks networks
- SILL8 Algae-based valorisation for retail FW
- SILL9 Informing and nudging consumers

To support these efforts, the Systemic Innovation Readiness Level (SIRL) tool and an Impact Assessment Methodology were developed. The project introduced Big Data Infrastructural Services (BDIS) and the 0FLW Data Space to enable AI-driven analytics. A market analysis of innovation clusters was conducted, alongside engagement in near-zero FLW pathways with key stakeholders.

Building on this foundation, during M19-36, the SILLs moved into the demonstration phase, showing strong potential in reducing FLW and greenhouse gas emissions. Data collection, evaluation, and refinements reinforced their expected impact.

The project enhanced BDIS, developed multiple AI applications, and applied the 0FLW Data Space prototype kit in collaboration with WP5, WP6, WP7, and the SILLs to refine governance and business models. Extensive assessments, helped guide scaling strategies.

ZeroW actively engaged stakeholders through workshops, capacity-building activities, and investment strategies. Policy contributions were strengthened with near-zero FLW transition pathways and modelling studies assessing supply chain interventions. The consortium collaborated with EU initiatives such as GD-SO Food Working Group, SISTERS, FOLOU, and WASTELESS projects, contributing to policy briefs and joint events.

Dissemination expanded with explanatory videos, the “ZeroW Hero” campaign, and targeted engagement strategies. The project exceeded IPR and knowledge transfer expectations, securing five patents applications and documenting 73 Key Exploitable Results (KERs), covering commercial applications, research outputs, and best practices.

With demonstrators operational, ongoing evaluation, and scaling strategies in development, ZeroW remains on track to deliver impactful FLW reduction solutions, policy recommendations, and long-term sustainability.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

ZeroW will go beyond the state of the art by addressing specific innovation maturity gaps needed for building effective FLW solutions, including the:
- inconsistencies among various definitions of FLW and their focus only on volumetric assessment, providing limited insight on devising appropriate strategies (SILL1);
- conflict mechanisms between FLW reduction and food poverty & food system resilience (SILL7);
- assessment of systemic readiness of FLW solutions, to steer innovation towards achieving high impact targets (all SILLs).

ZeroW will provide beyond the SoTA intelligent solutions, among which:
- innovative algorithms in support of food waste reduction through data-driven production process optimisation;
- novel analytical and software-based algorithms and associated services for greenhouse farms that enable efficient links between harvesting and food chain capabilities and demand requirements to reduce food loss;
- advanced systems and methods to accurately forecast the number of people and households that will apply for food bank support in the short, medium and longer term;
- new supply chain management/optimisation algorithms to deal with the extreme levels of uncertainty that food banks face when compared to commercial companies;
- the non-obvious application of (recent) mathematical optimisation techniques such as multi-objective optimisation and robust optimisation applied to dietetics and its ability to positively influence FLW;
- cloud based systems and methods for deducing freshness colour changes in products with constrained shelf-life and the subsequent step of transforming colour change to algorithmically infer remaining shelf life.

The project will lead to seven major impacts:
Contribute significantly to the achievement of the objectives and targets of the F2F Strategy and the European Green Deal, and in particular:
1) to halving the per capita food waste at retail and consumer levels by 2030.
2) to reducing GHG-emissions by at least 50% by 2050 compared with 1990 levels.
3) Reduce food losses and waste and the use of unsustainable packaging, at every stage of the food chain including consumption.
4) Provide sufficient, safe, nutritious, healthy and affordable food for all.
5) Improve the overall sustainability of food systems (social/health, climate/environmental and economic).
6) Improve the resilience of food systems to shocks and stresses.
7) Achieve an increase in awareness among policy makers, businesses, investors, entrepreneurs, institutions, stakeholders and citizens of selected innovative systemic solutions, of their potential and of the requirements to promote and realise their uptake at EU scale and behavioural change.

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