Project description
Fishing for better use of seafood industry’s side-streams
Europe’s fishing industry processes over five million tonnes of fish annually, of which, almost two third ends up as side-streams. These side-streams are either used for low-value animal feed or disposed of, a costly endeavour for the companies involved. The EU-funded WASEABI project aims to reverse this trend through new storage solutions, sorting technologies, decision tools and other technological solutions to boost the exploitation of seafood side-streams. Their aim is to ensure the valorisation of these raw materials into marketable products that transform side-streams into a source of income. WASEABI will take a whole chain perspective to succeed with high quality production of bioactive peptides for nutraceutical, food and feed applications as well as protein-based food ingredients, savoury ingredients and mineral supplements.
Objective
The current exploitation of the aquatic resources is hampered by inefficiency as up to 70 % end up as low-value products or waste, which is unsustainable considering the rising populations. In order to utilise this currently poorly exploited biomass for higher value purposes, provision of proper logistics and infrastructure to ensure high quality of side-streams for a prolonged window of time is essential. Also promising technologies currently available at lab level need to be adapted to industrial scale and integrated into a biorefinery approach. The objective of the WASEABI project is to solve challenges that prevents more sound exploitation of the aquatic resources. This will be obtained by developing, sorting technologies, storage solutions and decision tools that will secure an efficient, sustainable supply system for by-catches, as well as for solid and liquid side-streams from aquaculture, fisheries and the aquatic processing industries to biorefining operations. This will result in valorisation of these raw materials into marketable products. By addressing side-streams from six different raw materials emerging from typical aquaculture, fisheries and aquatic processing industries in Europe, WASEABI will take a whole chain perspective to succeed with high quality production of: i) bioactive peptides for nutraceutical, food and feed applications, ii) protein-based food ingredients, iii) savoury ingredients and mineral supplements for food and feed. WASEABI will also construct biorefining approaches and validate selected solutions in pilot scale at the premises of participating companies. The commercial potential of the produced ingredients will be evaluated and specific environmental, economic and social impacts of the proposed solutions will be quantified. Several of the developed technologies will be transferable across seafood companies. WASEABI addresses all the objectives described for BBI 2018. SO1.R1.
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Funding Scheme
RIA - Research and Innovation actionCoordinator
2800 Kongens Lyngby
Denmark