project - Research and innovation
Systemic Innovations Towards a Zero Food Waste Supply Chain - ZeroW
Systemic Innovations Towards a Zero Food Waste Supply Chain - ZeroW
Objectives
The project team envisions establishing ZeroW as a major driving force in reducing food loss and waste (FLW) by employing systemic innovation, thus supporting the dual ambition: to halve FLW by 2030 and ensure the enabling conditions for near-zero FLW by 2050. This systemic innovation approach is based on the development of a core demonstrative environment supporting nine Systemic Innovation Living Labs (SILLs) along the value chain, complemented by assessment activities to ensure a long term environmental and economic sustainability of zero-FLW solutions and a just transition towards a near-zero FLW system.
Objectives
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Activities
The project will 1) demonstrate systemic innovation solutions for reducing of FLW, 2) establish semantic interoperability through a managed European 0FLW Data Space and provide collaborative business and governance models for data sharing, 3) provide data-driven intelligence services for the digital support needed for the FLW Smart Applications, 4) assess the impacts, risks and sustainability trade-offs of the innovative solutions, 5) scale up the FLW systemic innovation solutions, 6) advance ZeroW’s innovative solutions commercially, 7) deliver FLW policy recommendations, 8) develop FLW macro-economic model and 8) engage with EU, National and global initiatives.
Activities
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Context
ZeroW responds to topic LC-GD-6-1-2020 ‘Testing and demonstrating systemic innovations in support of the Farm-to-Fork Strategy’ and specifically to sub-topic E ‘Reducing food losses and waste at every stage of the food chain including consumption, while also avoiding unsustainable packaging’. With Food Loss & Waste (FLW) broadly estimated at 30% of total food production, and with little to no progress on its reduction achieved in recent years, it is clear that any initiative targeting significant impact in this sector must address the main lock-in effects embedded in the current organisation and operation of the food system.
ZeroW addresses the following main structural and behavioural lock-in effects of the current food system, including:
(i) missing/fragmented FLW data (arduous/inaccurate data collection, largely based on subjective assessments and varied FLW definitions, not supporting effective reduction strategies);
(ii) primary focus at the lower layers of the FLW hierarchy;
(iii) limited food actor capabilities to reduce FLW especially in cases of diverse, seasonal & disruption-generated food surpluses, or in cases of sub-standard products;
(iv) inability to steer consumer buying behaviour towards reducing FLW at the critical point that the purchase occurs;
(v) untapped opportunities for making low-FLW products more consumer-appealing;
(vi) understanding of packaging as an unavoidable secondary waste stream rather than a FLW-reducing opportunity;
(vii) unbalanced (unjust) allocation of FLW innovation cost/benefits among food chain actors.
Further details
- Main funding source
- Horizon 2020 (EU Research and Innovation Programme) - Multi-actor project
Location details
- Main geographical location
- Dublin
Project keyword
€ 12,932,881
Total budget
Total contributions including EU funding.
Contacts
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Inlecom Commercial Pathways
Project coordinator
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Wageningen University & Research
Project partner
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Nederlandse Organisatie voor Toegepast Natuurwetenschappelijk Onderzoek
Project partner
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Waterford Institute of Technology
Project partner
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BioSense Institute
Project partner
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Digiotouch OU
Project partner
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Own Capital of the Flanders Research Institute for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food
Project partner
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Safe Food Advocacy Europe
Project partner
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Food & Bio Cluster Denmark
Project partner
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VLTN GCV
Project partner
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Instituto Tecnológico de Aragón
Project partner
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Konnecta Systems Limited
Project partner
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ITC – Innovation Technology Cluster Murska Sobota
Project partner
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Institute for Transport and Logistics Foundation
Project partner
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Instituto Tecnológico del Embalaje, Transporte y Logística (ITENE)
Project partner
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Asociatia Transilvania IT
Project partner
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Asociatia Clusterul Agro-Food-Ind Napoca
Project partner
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Fundación Corporación Tecnológica Andaluza
Project partner
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Instituto Andaluz Investigación y Formación Agraria, Pesquera, Alimentaria y de la Producción Ecológica
Project partner
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AgriFood Lithuania DIH
Project partner
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Sintef
Project partner
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Stichting Katholieke Universiteit Brabant - Tilburg University
Project partner
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Novamont S.p.A.
Project partner
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Sonae MC – Serviços Partilhados SA
Project partner
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Grupo Empresarial La Caña SL
Project partner
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Multiscan Technologies SL
Project partner
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UAB ART21
Project partner
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Lithuanian Vegetable Producers Association
Project partner
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Lithuanian Food Exporters Association (SMART Food Cluster)
Project partner
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F6S Network Ireland Limited
Project partner
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Allmicroalgae Natural Products
Project partner
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Universidade do Minho
Project partner
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Institute of Communication and Computer Systems - NTUA
Project partner
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Innovatiesteunpunt voor landbouw en platteland
Project partner
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OVAM – Public Waste Agency of Flanders
Project partner
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ICLEI European Secretariat GmbH (ICLEI ES)
Project partner
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Kmetijsko Gozdarska Zbornica Slovenije Kmetijsko Gozdarski Zavod Murska Sobota
Project partner
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University of Maribor
Project partner
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Robin Food NGO
Project partner
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Deutsches Institut für Lebensmitteltechnik e.V.
Project partner
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Asociación de Investigación de Industrías Cárnicas del Principado de Asturias
Project partner
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Aves Nobles y Derivados SL S
Project partner
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Termoformas de Levante SL
Project partner
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Eroski S. Coop.
Project partner
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Voedselbank Limburg vzw
Project partner
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SVZ Industrial Fruit & Vegetable Ingredients
Project partner
4 Practice Abstracts
The 0FLW Dataspace is an architectural concept for secure sharing data among organisations who have joined forces, resources and means in general. It will enable the exchange of data easier, in a shorter amount of time, with lesser costs and required specialised expertise, while remaining full control over privacy and the data. The implementation of a 0FLW dataspace will result in a generic IT infrastructure where information and business services can be found and shared in a secure and trusted way, based on standardized technical, semantical and organisational solutions to help reducing waste.At the end of the project an operational organisation will take care of the 0FLW data ecosystem and look after the interest of the ZeroW community.
See in English
Reducing food loss and waste at one stage of the supply chain has effects on other stages in the supply chain. Intuition predicts, for example, that when a household reduces its food waste, it should buy less food, thus affecting the retail sector. As a result, the retailer would need less input from the processor and so on. However, the economic literature on food waste shows that this effect does not necessarily have to happen and that a reduction in food waste might actually increase food purchases, which eventually can cause an increase in food waste. It all depends on the demand elasticities of consumers.In ZeroW project Work Package 1, we aim to model the effects of reducing food waste at one stage of the supply chain on other stages. We distinguish between avoidable food waste (such as leftovers) and unavoidable waste (such as bones or hides), and our model also includes pre-harvest losses.Our framework can be used to predict the effects of food waste reduction interventions developed by the Systemic Innovation Living Labs (SILLs) of the ZeroW project and show which stages of the supply chain might benefit (or lose) from these interventions or policies proposed by policymakers.
See in English
Innovations often focus on a new technology with the TRL scaling as a very well known tool. Our aim is to broaden this by stimulating LLs to consider other relevant dimensions and establish a systemic readiness level scaling (SIRL).The SIRL exercise is a 2-step process. The first step is to identify and describe all dimensions that are relevant for the innovation. The 5 generic dimensions to be addressed relate to technology, behavioural change processes, business operations and strategies, policy framework, and the value chain conditions and relations. It is crucial that all relevant dimensions are identified and described. For each, the LL describes what this dimension means and whether the current situation sufficiently enables the development and implementation of their innovation. As such, they are able to timely identify and address obstacles to reach systemic impact.The second step is to improve the innovation architecture. LLs describe for each dimension (1) the current situation, (2) what level 9 would look like and (3) the different steps that are needed to grow their innovation from the current situation to the level they aim to achieve. Finally, these descriptions can be linked to the readiness level scales available in the literature and assign numbers to each step.This exercise will show which dimensions are least developed; these are the bottleneck dimension(s) and require the LLs’ focus. The SIRL exercise needs to be repeated at least 3 times during the project lifetime. After every SIRL round the bottleneck dimension could change, thus shifting the focus of the scaling up process. The end result is an innovation package with adequately developed dimensions; a systemic innovation that effectively reduces food loss and waste.
See in English
ZeroW aims to demonstrate significant reduction of Food Loss and Waste (FLW). By the end of the project, our target is to achieve 25% FLW on micro level, through the innovations developed and applied in our 9 Systemic Innovations Living Labs (SILLs). We apply systemic approach for delivering and evaluating all of the project innovations. They are targeted to:- farmers: wasteless greenhouse solutions for pre-harvest and harvest stages; mobile food processing unit to valorise overproduction- processing: ugly food early identification, shelf-life assessment & alternative valorisation; data-driven poultry production process control & optimisation- packaging: biodegradable packaging and intelligent label informing retailers of remaining shelf life- retailers: store/warehouse food waste valorisation, and- consumers: informing & nudging consumers to make sustainable food choices to reduce household food waste and at the same time keep the high nutritional value of their diet.ZeroW pays attention to improving the efficiency of the foodbank networks and to the issue of availability and quality of the food supply chain FLW data, based on which companies, local authorities, countries and EC could make effective decisions to reduce the FLW.The SILLs are the pivot around which we build the rest of the project’s important activities: 0FLW dataspace, data-driven solutions for FLW reduction; business exploitation strategies for the innovations. The data gathered through the SILLs, their sustainability assessments and the macro-economic model developed in the project will contribute to policy recommendations for a just transition pathway to near-zero FLW by 2050 and regional scaling-up strategies for FLW reduction innovations.
See in English