CIRCLES aims to discover and translate innovative microbiomes-tailored circular actions into concrete applications that will ultimately enhance EU food system performances and their overall sustainability. The setup of real-world labs in the field of 6 food systems relevant to the EU market – tomatoes, spinach, poultry, pigs, Atlantic salmon and seabream aquacultures – will, first, enable CIRCLES to increase knowledge on the importance of food system microbiomes as determinants of productivity, quality, safety and sustainability. This discovery phase will nurture the design and implementation of food system-specific microbiomes-tailored circular actions. Relying on an integrative usage of different Smart Microbiome (SM)-modulators, circular actions aim to optimize the microbiomes of food systems, from farm to fork, for an overall improvement of food system performances. The effectiveness of actions will then be tested in the labs in the field. This real-world validation phase will allow CIRCLES to translate the project results into concrete products, applications, procedures and tools, ready to be exploited and communicated to penetrate the EU market. In particular, CIRCLES will conceptualize and create SM-food systems for the 6 CIRCLES food chains, defined as food systems with optimized microbiome configurations. CIRCLES will also provide innovative, newly defined SM-food products, as foods derived from the SM-food systems and certified by Microbiome Transparent (MT)-labels. Finally, a vast panel of food system-specific SM-modulators will be provided as new agro-biotech applications to be integrated into circular actions to reach the status of SM-food system. In conclusion, the conceptualization, creation, and dissemination of SM-food systems, as well as all connected procedures, products, and tools, will allow CIRCLES to endow the EU food systems with new, cost-effective commercial applications for improved productivity, quality, safety and sustainability.

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.