The Mediterranean Agri-food value chain, which represents a complex systems involving several local actors, such as farmers, small-scale food manufacturers, and local distributors among others, is challenged by the dual objective of (i) enhancing competitiveness, which is currently challenged by non-optimized organizational model, long supply chain and imported low price products of global markets, and (ii) improving sustainability of the productions and increase safety and quality of food products. The main objective of ValICET is to deploy an ICT solution and develop innovative processing technologies and business models that will allow enhancing the competitiveness of local actors of the agri-food supply chain by ensuring stakeholders (small-scale farmers, equipment manufacturers, processors, local retailers and consumers) engagement and, especially, meeting consumer demands for functional and healthier and locally produced foods with clean labels and at a fair price. Particularly, the project aims at developing novel strategies for the valorisation of wastes and by-products from post-farming processes of Mediterranean agri-food systems and the design of eco-friendly processes to recover high-added value bioactives to be reintroduced in the agri-food chain as food ingredients/additives within the circular economy framework. The functional ingredients/additives with high nutritional value, antioxidant capacity and antimicrobial activity can contribute to reduce post-farming food losses during transportation and storage, to improve the nutritional and sensory quality and to extend the shelf-life of Mediterranean food products such as fruits, bakery, wine and dairy products. ValICET will use an innovative approach (inter-linking expertise from academia and food industry) to hypothesize innovative solutions, leading to the maximal exploitation of food wastes and food by-products potentialities, through their conversion into value-added foods for human consumption. Implementation of innovative and sustainable processes to produce added-value products from local food manufacturers, while delivering marketing strategies and business models will contribute to (i) optimize the local Agri-food supply chain production (ii) decrease the negative impact of food waste and by-product in the environment, (iii) reduce food losses during storage and transportation, (iv) improve sociological understanding (particularly consumer perception), and (v) enhance the competitiveness of local cluster by identification of new production and market opportunities with consequently increased profit for the companies of the entire chain. This “multi-actor approach” research concerning farmers, LE, SMEs, retailers, and consumers will facilitate the cooperation among different stakeholders supporting innovative value chain design that will improve the competitiveness of small-scale farmers, manufacturers, local distributers against the large-scale production of global markets. Moreover, the production of innovative extracts and food ingredients with valuable properties will bring economic and social advantages, creating new jobs and marketable value-added products. Consumer behaviour analysis applied to the food products developed in the frame of ValICET will give consumer feedback providing new insights to define strategies in the product design and marketing strategies. Consumer studies will allow to access the best mechanisms to establish close relationships between all actors in the food chain and the final consumers. An ICT tool will be developed to ensure the competitiveness of food producers in domestic and foreign markets through the divulgation of local and traditional products as well for the communication and new supply chain arrangements among small producers, enterprises and consumers.

The food and drink industry is the EU's biggest manufacturing. However, this industry is one of the most water and energy intensive industries worldwide while the companies belong to that sector produce a lot of waste. Specifically, the food and beverage industry consumes 56% of the available water for industrial and urban use. Additionally, food processing embeds 28% of the total energy used for production, while the total direct energy consumed by the European food industry amounted to 28.4 Mt oil equivalent, while 30.6 Mt of food waste are produced in this industry. Although, huge steps have been made in increasing the water use efficiency through the use of modern technologies and methods, there is limited effort from the food and beverages industry to minimize freshwater use during the raw material processing. In addition, high water consumption in industrial areas lead to increased production costs due to the fact that the tariffs for public wastewater treatment can be very high in European cities as well as the industrial electricity prices can also be very high. Currently, solutions for wastewater treatment in industries include the use of clarification, membrane filtration, reverse osmosis, process water polishing, disinfection with water treatment chemicals and UV, and biological treatment technologies. However, the use of these technologies under a water-waste-energy nexus is very limited. AccelWater’s project main objective is to optimize freshwater water consumption in the food and beverage industry under a water-waste-energy nexus by introducing beyond state-of-the-art water reclaiming, reusing and Artificial Intelligence enabled monitoring and control technologies will permit the use of reclaimed water in the manufacturing processes of food and beverages and on the same time will allow waste and energy reclamation, optimization and management, and consequently will result to environmental and socioeconomic sustainability.

Pulsed electric field technology (PEF) represents an innovative solution for sustainable processing in order to improve the competitiveness of the European food industry. Currently, in spite of the many advantages deriving from the introduction of the PEF technology in the food industry and the existence of different PEF manufactures at industrial-scale, applications of PEF in the food industry is still limited. FieldFOOD project is based on a preliminary analysis addressed to identify the bottlenecks that cause such limited application with the objective of providing SME companies (food producers, pulse power producers, equipment manufactures) with a clear competitive edge, as well as opportunities for growing, diversification and job creation but also of responding to consumer demand for foods with fresh characteristics or novel foods that contribute to individual health and wellbeing. This broad objective will be achieved by: a) a systematic process analysis of different specific applications (fruit juice processing, tomato product processing, winemaking, olive oil extraction and cider-making) for a successful integration of the PEF technology in order to replace or complement existing traditional food processing technologies and b) the design of modular, portable, low-cost pulse generators. The main deliverable of FieldFOOD project will be to validate and demonstrate, in co-operation with SMEs, implementation of modular, portable, low-cost pulse generators for different applications. The efforts needed to introduce this technology in the food industry for different applications are necessary to be multidisciplinary. Therefore, to be efficient and successful, strong links needs to be established between research institutions with a well-established expertise in PEF technology (4 partners), manufactures of PEF generator (1 SME partner) and food companies (5 SMEs partners) that represent the final users of the technology.