RESFOOD

RESOURCE EFFICIENT AND SAFE FOOD PRODUCTION AND PROCESSING

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 Obiettivo del progetto (Objective)

'RESFOOD adresses on the most important topics in the food chain food towards resource efficient and safe food production and processing, leading to maximised resource productivity and recycling and re-use of valuable materials by research and demonstration of the proposed green solutions: Increased output with reduced input. Many natural resources (e.g. minerals, water, soil, biomass, land and fuels (energy) are used to grow and process food products, but in many cases their usage is highly inefficient, due to the lack of technological solutions and knowledge in combination with uncertainties about health and safety issues. Another important challenge in the food chain management is the large amount of wasted food. RESFOOD will overcome the main bottlenecks and barriers leading to an Resource Efficient Food Chain by: • Developing innovative technologies for re-use of Nutrients, Energy, Water and Biomass, reducing input, maximizing resource productivity and minimizing waste • Develop new methods for improving the disinfection processes for vegetables ensuring appropriate monitoring of health and safety risks. • Validate the solutions in five on site pilot demonstrations, also including Life Cycle Assessment In the RESFOOD resource efficiency concept the focus is a cascade approach: Look first for the most efficient solutions with the lowest effort, like direct re-use of warm and cold water (and energy) nutrients and biomass, followed by more complex solutions like withdrawal of useful products and energy from the water and the recovery of high valuable components from food waste (biomass). This will lead to 30 to 75 % reduction of water, energy and nutrients use, 25 to 80 % less emissions to surface- and ground water, 20-30 % reduction of the use of fertilizer products and overall 20 to 30 % more crop per resource input, combined with better controlling and reducing food health and safety risks.'

Introduzione (Teaser)

The RESFOOD project is looking for ways to make food production, cleaning and processing more water, energy and resource efficient.

Descrizione progetto (Article)

With a booming global population and increasing demand for healthy and nutritious food, agriculture is racing to keep up with society's demands. To make better use of the resources allocated to food production and processing, we need to innovate agricultural and food processing technologies and to reduce food waste.

The EU-funded 'Resource efficient and safe food production and processing' (http://www.resfood.eu (RESFOOD)) project aims to overcome barriers to a resource-efficient food chain through a number of innovation interventions. These include new technologies to decrease resource use and minimise waste, and new methods to improve disinfection as well as health and safety monitoring in food processing.

Project partners have thus far focused on laboratory-scale experiments to develop new methods and technologies.

This project period has yielded a process to close water and nutrient cycles reducing water consumption in hydroponic systems by up to 40 %. In the area of food processing, researchers demonstrated a reduction in water use of 20 to 60 %.

Researchers also tested a number of decontamination technologies. Combined physical and chemical methods were shown to have no added benefits in microbial reduction in vegetables, so RESFOOD will now focus on new chemical treatments for sanitation of the water. A fast detection methodology has been successfully tested at laboratory scale.

In the second project period, RESFOOD will focus on validating these new processes through five case studies in food production and processing facilities. Once this process is complete, project partners will be in a position to implement new resource-efficient technologies in the food sector.