Waste4Soil envisions the development of 10 technological and methodological solutions for recycling food processing residues from the food industry into local, biobased circular soil improvers for improved soil health. A user-driven standardised Evaluation Framework will support stakeholders from the food value chain, including waste managers, to assess their status towards food processing residues circularity and take action for recycling suitable waste streams into beneficial soil improvers. To ensure co-innovation and collaborative research, Waste4Soil will setup 7 Soil Health Living Labs across Europe, in Greece, Finland, Spain, Poland, Hungary, Italy and Slovenia, to study the valorisation of 8 types of food processing residues (i.e., meat, fish, dairy, cereals, olive oil, beverages (wine), fruits and vegetables, and processed food). The project focuses on assessing and improving the effectiveness of existing routes of food waste management to soil improver components, formulation and application methods by focusing on: 1) Anaerobic digestion residues by employing novel nutrient separation including Selective Electrodialysis, bio-electrochemical and membrane systems 2) Novel efficient Biochar production from food processing wastes and digestates 3) BioPhosphate processing 4) Effective composting process of solid residues 5) Protein hydrolysates acting as soil improvers and AD-Microalgae combined processes for soil biostimulants and 6) An enabling management platform applied in all living labs, with a growing database of data analytics, route optimisation applications, soil health evaluations and application recipe’s, commercial aspects, and the capacity to use IoT devices in logistics. The 27 partners and 1 associated partner supporting this project proposal are forming a transdisciplinary partnership accross 10 European countries.

Demand for proteins is increasing for food and feed applications. To meet the increasing demand, production will have to double by 2050. However, current protein production, both animal- and vegetal based, has severe negative environmental impacts in terms of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, land and water use, as well as biodiversity loss. The EU is not self-sufficient when it comes to protein production and a large proportion of the demand is met with imported proteins with concerns regarding food security and the general competitiveness of the EU. It is therefore of vital importance to find sustainable alternative protein sources that can be economically produced in quantities that meet growing food and feed sectors. NextGenProteins has identified microalgae, single cell protein and insects as three promising sources of alternative proteins that can be produced through innovative and environmentally sustainable bioconversion processes using industrial waste streams. These processes cause limited environmental impacts and pressure on natural resources. Through collaboration between industry and RTD, the project will address key barriers that currently prohibit or limit the application of the three alternative proteins in food and feed, such as production scalability and optimisation, production costs, value chain risks, safety, regulations and consumer trust and acceptance. The project will demonstrate the suitability and economic viability of the alternative proteins in food and feed value chains and explore their market opportunities with the industry, stakeholders, policy makers and consumers. NextGenProteins will find means to improve the acceptability and trust of consumers towards alternative proteins and processes. The project will contribute to strengthening food security, sustainability and self-sufficiency of EU protein production with future-proof supply, as well as long-term reduction of land use, water use, GHG emissions and energy of EU food sector.

Agri-food chain actors lack objective, robust and reliable information to meet consumer expectations in relation to the multiple aspects of intrinsic quality of livestock products from the various European husbandry systems. The goal of INTAQT project is to perform an in-depth multi-criteria assessment of the relationships between husbandry systems and intrinsic quality traits of animal-sourced products. This will be achieved through the development of quality assessment and authentication tools, to provide science-based decision support for policy makers, industries, farmers and consumers as well as develop means to improve husbandry practices complying with high quality of animal products and sustainability of production, defined as the "One Quality" of products. INTAQT will focus on unprocessed and processed ready-to-eat chicken meat, beef, and dairy products stemming from a gradient of extensive to intensive husbandry systems from a wide variety of European countries. The project will use a multi-actor participatory approach, involving all actors of the agri-food chains from farmers to consumers, scientists, certification bodies, policy makers and citizens. The challenges addressed are to: i) develop comprehensive models quantifying the impact of husbandry systems on quality traits related to product safety, nutritional value and sensory features, ii) co-construct with agri-food chain actors rapid and cost-effective innovative and practical analytical tools for the prediction of the intrinsic quality of livestock products and authentication of the associated husbandry systems, iii) co-construct with agri-food chain actors, multi-criteria scoring tools of the intrinsic quality of products, and iv) using all these developed tools, promote innovative husbandry practices (approved by agri-food chain actors) to achieve consistently and verifiable excellent quality, safe, healthy and tasty animal-based products from both extensive and intensive husbandry systems.

ONE EARTH aims to develop and assess innovative bio-based solutions for the production of nutraceutical/cosmetic, bioadhesive, agriculture (fertilizers), and aquaculture (fish feed) products by exploiting residual biomass of animal origin. The overall purpose of ONE EARTH is to develop integrated circular value chains by valorising marine biomass for terrestrial products and using terrestrial biomass for aquaculture product production thus promoting a sustainable and "self-reinforcing" carbon cycle. ONE EARTH will obtain polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) and polypeptides that make up nutraceuticals, cosmetics and fish feed products through the transformation of specific residual biomass, mainly using biotechnological strategies. In particular, cheese whey (CW), i.e., the most abundant liquid waste from dairy industries, will undergo anaerobic acidogenic fermentation processes for the production of volatile fatty acids (VFAs), which will be used as a carbon source for the production of PUFAs by culturing pure microbial strains. A massive valorisation of CW carbon will be assured by exploiting CO2-rich gaseous streams from fermentation processes for cultivation of algae and further extractions of PUFA. Moreover, chicken feathers and fish scales will be processed using microbial and enzymatic approaches to obtain polypeptides, while fishbones will be treated with a thermochemical innovative process together with organic residues from other project units to produce Phosphorus-rich fertilizers. Dedicated standard tests in significant environments will be carried out to evaluate the safety and quality of developed products. Consequently, the economic, environmental and social sustainability and viability of the whole proposed integrated circular value chain will be assessed. The compliance with standards and regulations of developed solutions will also be considered to assess the project potential and opportunities to promote industrial initiatives and new business.