The unprecedented environmental and societal changes ongoing at global level are generating a number of challenges for assuring the sustainable development of mankind throughout the next decades. Around one third of all the food globally produced is wasted every year, generating 1.3 billion tonnes of residues per year. Food losses occur throughout the whole food value chain from farmers to consumers. The European Strategy for Bioeconomy features actions for ensuring food security, managing natural resources, reducing dependence on non-renewable resources, mitigating and adapting to climate change, creating jobs and maintaining European competitiveness.
Agrimax brings several benefits to the primary production including food loss reduction, natural resources preservation, fossil feedstock replacement, by-product valorisation and environmental impact reduction. Such outcomes have been proven at demonstration scale by the development of two multi-feedstock pilot biorefineries. These convert agricultural and food processing wastes (AFPW) into products that have been validated in operational environment. The two pilot biorefineries have been built in Italy and Spain upgrading and extending the functionalities of already available facilities at the hosting site. These are now used to manufacture the products that in the second half of the project have been validated in their final final applications. The performances of the final products have been validated and the overall environmental impact of the entire value chain has been successfully evaluated according to the LCA standard.
Building upon previous results, many case-scenarios were selected to disclose the potential of a number of new agro-value chains based on residues from tomato, cereal, olive and potato processing. The results of Agrimax leads to the optimum recovery of by-products into biorefineries as well as their use for coatings based on cutin, proteins for food applications, fibres for biocomposites, aromas, phenolic compounds, lycopene and minor carotenoids, advanced cellulose fibres, biopolymers produced by fungi for secondary packaging, building blocks for aromatic biopolymers and compost as well as hydrocompost. These products can be now applied in three markets:
1] Packaging (the project covers biobased solutions for flexible and rigid packaging, active and passive barrier materials, coatings for metal packaging, biocomposites and secondary packaging).
2] Food (additives, ingredients, coatings, microorganisms used in production, enhanced food products will be delivered).
3] Agriculture (bioplastics embedding fertilisers-based solutions for mulching films and pots as well as advanced waste derived biofertilisers with biostimulant and biocontrol properties will be delivered in a cascade approach).
Agrimax has elaborated as well new business models to maximize the impact of the project results. This activity has been performed in collaboration with stakeholders that are engaged also thanks to the development of a Joint Stakeholder Platform opening the pilot biorefineries to external entities.
