FAIRCHAIN addresses the growing need for a significant transformation of current food systems by developing competitive intermediate food chain alternatives adapted to small and mid-sized actors. FAIRCHAIN specifically aims to: -Foster the emergence of innovative intermediate food value chains that support the scaling-up of small and mid-sized actors facing unsustainable conventional dominant agri-food system. This requires to specific technological, organisational and social innovations as well as regulatory and policy adaptations to widely deliver food in a fair and sustainable way. -Inspire and encourage larger actors to down-scale conventional food value chains and better address the growing need of consumers to consume local high quality and safe products. The emergence of intermediate food value chains should put pressure on dominant actors, forcing them to align with best practices in terms of offering opportunities to local suppliers and ensuring an equitable distribution of costs and benefits. The main goal of FAIRCHAIN is to test, pilot and demonstrate recently developed technological, organisational and social innovations, realising a shift up to TRL7 and enabling small and mid-sized actors to scale-up and expand the production of affordable nutritious food in competitive intermediate food value chains. FAIRCHAIN will address the dairy and fruit&vegetable sectors, which hold a strategic economic position in Europe. Both are prone to integrate a large variety of innovations, correspond to an increasing consumer demand for nutritious and healthy food and need to meet the challenge of sustainably delivering perishable commodities to consumers. FAIRCHAIN will consider the entire value chain. More focus is given to postharvest steps rather than the production step in itself because the power imbalances created in market relationships are mainly attributed to the increasing concentration in the processing and retail sectors in conventional food supply chains

GLOPACK proposes a cutting-edge strategy addressing the technical and societal barriers to spread in our social system, innovative eco-efficient packaging able to reduce food environmental footprint. Focusing on accelerating the transition to a circular economy concept, GLOPACK aims to support users and consumers’ access to innovative packaging solutions enabling the reduction and circular management of agro-food, including packaging, wastes. Building from existing key enabling but simply applicable technologies, GLOPACK will focus on increasing the TRL of the three main promising advances in the food packaging area: (1) bio-circular (biodegradable materials issued from agro-food residues conversion) packaging materials, (2) active packaging to improve food preservation and shelf-life without additives and (3) RFID enabled wireless food spoilage indicator as new generation of self-adjusting food date label. GLOPACK strategy will tackle the diffusion of these innovation through the whole stakeholders chains, from the researcher up to the consumer, i.e. the uptake by packaging industry through pilot and large-scale processing for the selected technologies, by food companies through the deployment of a software tool for decision making and for providing proof of usefulness to all stakeholders, by others users (e.g. retailers) and consumer through user-driven adoption strategies, cost-benefit analysis and validation and retro-active adjustment in close to real conditions. Validation of the solutions including compliance with legal requirements, economic feasibility and environmental impact will push forward the three technologies tested and the related decision-making tool from TRL 3-4 to 7 for a rapid and easy market uptake contributing therefore to strengthen European companies’ competitiveness in an always more globalised and connected world.

UPCYCLE aims to demonstrate novel circular value chains that transform currently non-recyclable mixed plastic waste into biodegradable and recyclable materials for packaging applications. Building on the promising results of the H2020 UPLIFT project, UPCYCLE addresses specific scalability hotspots to reach economic viability. The project scales up its novel plastic biorefinery and ecopolymers with a strategy that leverages: (1) A Safe-and-Sustainable-by-Design framework to ensure safety (i.e., non-toxic materials), a reduction in GHG emissions (-30%), and economic viability (<40% selling price); (2) AI-powered fast-track innovation for process intensification; (3) A versatile biorefinery process to valorise mixed plastic waste (both fossil- and bio-based) and secondary biomass residues; (4) A smart polymerisation and formulation strategy using bio-based, degradable additives to tune biodegradability and enhance technical performance for four selected packaging use cases. Leveraging a multidisciplinary consortium of top-tier academic institutions and industry leaders, UPCYCLE is poised to create significant impact in the packaging industry. UPCYCLE’s ecopolymers, derived from plastic and biomass waste streams, promote a viable circular business model for European recyclers, polymer processors, compounders, and packaging producers. Moreover, our strategy demonstrates how renewable and upcycled building blocks and additives can be blended into commercially available polymers to delivers novel PHA-, PLA- and Furan-based packaging formulations, to successfully modulate degradability and technical performance, based on the application. By providing the tools to improve properties and economic viability of polymers systems that are already in the market, we provide a fast-track pathway towards impact.

FOODGUARD aims to develop and demonstrate co-created solutions that will support innovations & advances based on microbiome, microbial activities & technology hubs to address food, health, economic and environmental challenges.The envisioned approach consists of a framework of toolsets & methodologies to provide sustainable solutions in food processing, packaging & across the food value chain to address food shelf-life increase & waste reduction in a holistic manner.The proposed solutions aim to (a) extend food shelf life with novel packaging/ biopreservation i.e. use of protective cultures/synthetic microbial consortia, recyclable films with natural antimicrobials or protective cultures;(b)monitor food quality/safety/shelf life with microbial indicators/molecular biomarkers used in smart packaging (TTIs, smart printed tags, no-invasive sensors)& (c) accurately predict food shelf life & improve traceability using predictive models, AI/ML, Internet of Things & tools like QR,NFR etc.; FOODGUARD toolbox components will be extensively evaluated in real life settings through four pilot demonstrations in 4 different countries with involvement of all relevant actors while covering diverse requirements and different food products. FOODGUARD outcomes target i) to minimize food loss and waste by shelf life extension and prediction,ii) to help the food industry to implement these preservation solutions as an alternative to chemical preservatives,iii)to deploy responsive policy for implementing these approaches as well as to engage consumers educated via tools/platforms, effectively improving awareness &trust in the food sector to(iv)increase traceability, providing real-time supply transparency that will improve the uptake of data-driven innovations in food systems, optimize resource efficiency (reducing food waste from farm to fork)(v)manage increased complexity in agri-food production & supply chain process, make it easier for consumers to adopt a healthy & safe food diet.