Launched in 2017, SEAFOODTOMORROW strengthen the seafood production and processing industry in Europe. Over the project’s three and a half years, SEAFOODTOMORROW has generated new knowledge, created new tools and solutions to tackle some of the biggest issues facing the seafood industry: sustainability, ensuring safety, quality and transparency and availability of products that meet consumer needs. The following eco-innovative solutions and key exploitable results were:
a) Seafood sustainability, where partners have formulated novel feeds for aquaculture, replacing traditional fish feeds sources of omega-3 fatty acids, such as fishmeal and fish oil, with sustainable eco-friendly natural ingredients; they have optimised protocols to support improved seafood production using Integrated Multi-Trophic Aquaculture systems and demonstrated technologies that can be used to reduce energy and water consumption during seafood processing; research has also advanced models for eco-friendly management strategies against contamination risks at production sites.
b) Seafood safety, where partners have tested and validated methods to remove or reduce contaminants in seafood produce and ready-to-eat products; they have also demonstrated and validated new technologies to detect contaminants in seafood that can be used by producers to control the risk of contaminants and reduce loss of their products.
c) Seafood quality and transparency, where partners have developed a concept for an accredited certification scheme, based on a benchmark tool and utilising a quality label; linked to a new seafood traceability tool, these outputs allow for easy and comprehensive access to product information for users all along the value chain; they have also demonstrated a fast, low-cost and easy-to-use DNA technique and established a new DNA database that supports the reliable identification of seafood species, even in highly processed products.
d) Healthy products and informative tools, where partners have created delicious recipes for new, ready-to-eat seafood dishes that meet consumer dietary needs; the recipes include adaptations to reduce the amount of sodium in processed seafood products; a selection of recipes for at home cooking have been published in a free e-recipe book; the team has also launched a new version of FishChoice - a free, web-based tool and smartphone app that provide detailed information on the benefits (nutrients) and risks (potential pollutants), as well as sustainability of seafood, to guide consumers in their daily choices; at last a new web-based training course, addressing education gaps in the seafood sector, has also been developed for managers in this sector.
To ensure that all results are used by the key stakeholders in the seafood sector, SEAFOODTOMORROW has carried out customised transfer activities for each target audience. Three demonstration workshops were held to bring these outputs directly to industry. A policy meeting was held to support transfer of recommendations made by the consortium, and to support uptake of solutions by industry that first require legislative change. The project’s final event was a celebration of these achievements, as well as an opportunity to further reach stakeholders. This effort will translate into new collaboration agreements and further funding to continue developing some of the outputs presented within this document. Some of the outputs are now in the exploitation process, with the submition of two patents.
