ECOPROLIVE project proposes an innovative production process to profit of the bioactive potential of olives in different products (olive oil, functional oil, functional fibre ingredient, functional enriched products) with minimal loss of valuable compounds (hydroxytyrosol, tyrosol, oeluropein, oleocanthal, squalene…) and improved environmental impact compared to the traditional processes at the olive oil mill and pomace oil factory.
All products obtained have commercial and healthy value of socio-economic impact. Healthier product development is driven by the evolving movement of health self-management through healthy diet and lifestyles. EFSA has approved a cardiovascular health claim for olive oil polyphenols above 5 mg /20 ml of oil. In addition to the social impacts, environmental impacts are quantified by a Life Cycle Assessment. The developed technology contributes to a more sustainable processing by the reduction of wastewater generation and exploitation of by-products in up-cycling strategies. The impacts will be intensified by replication in olive oil mills and olive pomace factories willing to take up the developed technology.
Furthermore, the participating SMEs implementing the ECOPROLIVE process will improve their competitiveness making use of innovation for growth and diversification.
Overall objectives are: demonstrating the technical viability of the innovative processing, improving the sustainability of the olive oil industry, researching markets for the new products developed (solving market barriers), product prototyping and product dossier elaboration, and the validation of the technology at an operational environment.
EcoPROLIVE innovative processing integrates several emerging technologies prior and after the mechanical procedures that had not been previously used in field of olive oil production. The by-product resulting from the process, containing are organc olive oil; olive flour with a high content of fiber, protein, and antioxidant polyphenols, which has been applied in 0.1-5% to baking products to obtain a product with high composition in fiber and of application in functional feeding; olive essential oil which contains high concentration of 3 antioxidants and can be used as base in preparation of many types of edible oils, cosmetics and , also, massages oils;
Besides, this project will allow to dramatically reduce olive oil industrial waste and to revalorize all by-products obtained from this industry to improve the sustainability and competitiveness of the sector, mainly integrated by SMEs
