The vision of FutureFoodS is to collectively achieve environmentally-friendly, socially secure, fair and economically viable healthy and safe Food Systems (FS) for Europe. FutureFoodS gather 87 partners from 22 EU Member States, 6 Associated Countries and 1 third country. FutureFoodS includes public and private actors, policy makers, foundations, locally, sub-nationally, nationally, EU-widely. All these FutureFoodS partners are fully aligned on the vision for the Partnership and the methodology for its implementation in line with SDG17 and EU Green Deal components. This vision has been broken down into general (GO), specific (SO) and operational (OO) objectives applying across the 4 R&I areas and 4 transversal activities identified by the FutureFoods consortium in its stable draft Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda (SRIA) which constitutes the strategic backbone of the project. The four GO cover: GO1 - Functioning of FS; GO2 - System approaches; GO3 - Inclusive government; GO4 - Co-creation cases. These GO have then been translated into SO prioritised in line with the timescale and resources of the Partnership: SO1 - Change the way we eat; SO2- Change the way we process and supply food, SO3 - Change the way we connect with FSs and SO4 - Change the way we govern FS. In addition, 6 interconnected OO have been set: OO1- Pooling R&I resources and programming; OO2 - Operational FS Observatory; OO3 - Active FS knowledge Hub of FS Labs; OO4 - Functioning knowledge sharing and scaling mechanisms; OO5- Revisiting the SRIA; OO6 - Promoting, supporting, widening & gathering FS various communities. The objectives implemented in the 8 WPs of FutureFoodS will exert impact directly or indirectly in most of the destinations of Horizon Europe’s Cluster 6 2023-2024 work programme and particularly for the topic destination ‘Fair, healthy and environment-friendly FS from primary production to consumption’ echoing to the main EU and World FS policies & strategies.

The effective application of biotechnology plays a crucial role in building a sustainable European industry, in line with the EU Bioeconomy Strategy and its Progress Report, and contributing to the transformation of Europe outlined in the Green Deal. But despite the enormous potential of biotechnology for contributing to sustainable development in areas such as healthcare, materials, chemicals and food production, the technology is not widely accepted and supported by the general public. This leads to reluctance among industry to adopt and invest in biotechnological solutions, uncertainty among investors, and creates little incentive to eliminate regulatory barriers that prevent implementation. Recognising their concerns is therefore essential for improving the adoption of these technologies. The main objective of the B-TRUST project is thus to develop a transparent and inclusive governance model enabling the application of biotechnology to the bio-based and agri-food sector. More specifically, to (1) inform and create transparency related to consumer and environmental safety, (2) leverage engagement from citizens and other stakeholders, and (3) develop and exchange best practices. This model will be built based on the Theory of Change, to ensure impact while keeping all actors committed, and use co-creation trajectories with civil society and stakeholders as trust catalysts, leading to a set of measures and principles for building trust. The model will be developed and finetuned via four biotech use cases chosen to cover different types of concerns and benefits. Mapping out the real and perceived risks and benefits of these technologies will lead to a comprehensive assessment of the technologies, laying the foundations for general trust-building. Lastly, a forum will be created to deploy trainings and keep stakeholders engaged and informed, allowing the model to be replicated and sustained for further research and development, policy making and funding schemes.

Agri-food industry generates nearly 50% of the average composition of global waste in form of organic residual stream. Current management practices for waste management, including landfilling as the worst option, have to be improved to fulfil the targets of the EU. Agri-food residual streams are a potential substitute of fossil-based resources and have an important added value if used as feedstock in for the BBI, but present a high complexity and variables mixture of molecules, which makes difficult its valorisation. For this reason, the integration of a deeper knowledge on composition, logistics and volume of various organic streams could support the decision-making process to maximise profit from a specific feedstock and to select the most appropriate technologies for its optimal valorisation . The main project objective is to develop and validate at a relevant environment, the MODEL2BIO Decision-Support System tool. This will be an innovative concept that using predictive models, will estimate i) the agri-food industry residual streams composition (considering the seasonality, territorial features and origin); ii) the best recommended ways for valorising it. These recommendations will be made under a holistic perspective (technical, economic, environmental and social), with the prioritisation of the valorisation possibilities through technical and economic criteria and the final decision through holistic criteria. This innovative tool is based on the interconnection of three complementary elements: Simulation module, Optimisation algorithm and the LCA module. MODEL2BIO consortium consist on a multidisciplinary team of 11 partners from 5 different countries, covering the whole value chain and containing RTDs, universities, SMEs and clusters, and the active involvement of 27 companies providing residual streams, production process data and validating the MODEL2BIO tool. MODEL2BIO Budget is 5.970.976,16€ and request 4.730.393,8€ for funding.

The Conveyor System market and, in particular, robot segment for the automated material handling are experiencing double-digit growth at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR). EU manufacturers in this sector plays an important role, covering 23% of the market but this technological edge is being challenged due to the astonishing growth of China, Japan and Korea. In real world, many objects to be handled, including food, clothes, bottles, or plastic items, are soft or deformable and robots are not yet efficient and effective in handling these objects. In this context, AGILEHAND aims at developing advanced technologies for grading, handling and packaging autonomously soft and deformable products, as a strategic instrument to improve flexibility, agility and reconfigurability of production and logistic systems of the European manufacturing companies. AGILEHAND will deploy 3 integrated Suites: 1) SMART SENSING SUITE, self-calibrating sensing solutions to grade the quality (both interior and exterior) of delicate objects and to produce a mesh of integrated and overlapping sensors that will improve production-line traceability, agility and reconfigurability; 2) SELF-ADAPTIVE HANDLING, SORTING AND PACKAGING SUITE, robotic manipulation systems that reacts to product quality and that can Pick-Up and Re-Orientated Different Soft and Deformable Products without causing product damage considering collaborative (human-in-the-middle) approaches; 3) AGILE, FLEXIBLE AND RAPID RECONFIGURABLE SUITE, a set of AI based solutions that will allow for monitoring, adaptive control and synchronisation of production and logistics flows in a factory, even when faced with a variability of products, production mix or fresh market, guaranteeing high performance in customer response time, and an efficient use of resources. The AGILEHAND Solutions will be demonstrated in 4 industrial pilots that differ in characteristics of the surface, deformability, and consistency of the products to be handle.

The CATALYSE project will create a network of food safety actors with the aim to support adoption of knowledge and innovative solutions along the value chain. The network will foster collaboration and food safety knowledge sharing in a model that COLLECTS and then TRANSLATES knowledge and practices across our community through active EDUCATION and FACILITATION. The project aims to bridge the gap between end users, innovators, practitioners, trainers, and regulators by facilitating communication among these parties while matching practical needs with innovative solutions. During network activities we will set priorities for future work, provide food safety education and training, and support food business start-ups and SMEs. Data on inventions and practices related to food safety will be made available on an open access platform to support broad communication. Education and facilitation will be cornerstone activities to support innovation and change management to ensure the successful implementation of newly designed solutions and adoption by member states food safety authorities. CATALYSE will establish a community of practice to connect stakeholders from the complete value chain and promote cross-fertilization of ideas to create a more resilient, sustainable, and equitable community.