AgriMax project – Harnessing the wastes of the European agro-food industry

The AgriMax project, one of the new demonstration actions of the BBI JU, started running at the beginning of last month with a kick-off meeting in the facilities of the coordinator with the presence of the whole consortium and the BBI Project Officer, Ana Ruiz. The fund was granted under the topic “Valorisation of agricultural residues and side streams from the agro-food industry” (BBI.VC3.D5-2015) of the 2015 call and it will try to contribute to the competitiveness of the agricultural and food sectors through the cascade valorisation of a large amount of the content of selected agri-food wastes in high added value applications.

As I mentioned in previous posts about projects with similar approaches, the BBI JU supports the transformation of wastes into bioproducts through biorefineries in order to release the European bioeconomy potential. EU generates annually large quantities of agricultural waste and it is important to build new value chains and interconnections between sectors to walk towards a resource-efficient Europe. In this sense, AgriMax will deliver 2 pilot plants (Spain and Italy) to demonstrate the technical feasibility of different valorisation technologies for processing the agri-food waste surplus. They will be essential for the further implementation of the technologies by large biorefineries. The project will also demonstrate the use of the resulting biocompounds in food, packaging and agricultural products, studying the suitable business models for the new value chains.

Figure 1. AgriMax project concept

The consortium combines the expertise of 29 partners from 10 European countries: 11 of them from academia and technology institutes and 18 industry participants (12 SMEs and 6 large enterprises). A Spanish SME leads this large consortium. It is IRIS, an advanced engineering company that specializes in process monitoring and control solutions and novel technologies for process optimisation.

Below, a summary of the key information and a short interview with the project coordinator complete this post about AgriMax.

Key information

Title	Agri and food waste valorisation co-ops based on flexible multi-feedstocks biorefinery processing technologies for new high added value applications
General objective	AgriMax will combine flexible processing technologies to valorise residues and by-products from the agriculture and food processing industry to extract valuable biocompounds used to produce active ingredients, packaging and agricultural materials, among others.
Budget	Total cost: 15.54 M€. BBI JU contribution: 12.49 M€.
Duration	October 1st 2016 – September 30th 2020.
Partnership	- Innovacio i Recerca Industrial i Sostenible SL (Spain) - Asociación de Investigación de Materiales Plásticos y Conexas (Spain) - Universiteit Gent (Belgium) - Consorzio Interuniversitario Nazionale per la Scienza e Tecnologia dei Materiali (Italy) - Institut de Recerca i Tecnologia Agroalimentaries (Spain) - Nofima AS (Norway) - Instituto Tecnológico del Embalaje, Transporte y Logística (Spain) - Alma Mater Studiorum - Universita di Bologna (Italy) - Fraunhofer (Germany) - Stazione Sperimentale per L'industria delle Conserve Alimentari (Italy) - University College Dublin (Ireland) - Universidad de Almería (Spain) - Biovale Limited (United Kingdom) - Federació de Cooperatives Agràries de Catalunya (Spain) - Fachverband der Nahrungs und Genussmittelindustrie (Austria) - Gospodarsko Interesno Zdruzenje Grozd Plasttehnika - Giz Grozd PlasttehnikA (Slovenia) - Azienda Agricola Chiesa Virginio (Italy) - Exergy LTD (United Kingdom) - Laboratori Archa SRL (Italy) - Femto Engineering SRL (Italy) - Laser Consult Muszaki-Tudomanyos es Gazdasagi Tanacsado Korlatolt Felelossegu Tarsasag (Hungary) - Mycoplast di Federico Maria Grati e Stefano Babbini S.N.C. (Italy) - Organic Waste Systems NV (Belgium) - Bioprocess Pilot Facility BV (Netherlands) - Fertinagro Nutrientes, S.L. (Spain) - Gaviplas, S.L. (Spain) - Barilla G. E R. Fratelli SPA (Italy) - Indulleida S.A. (Spain) - Ardagh Group Italy SRL (Italy)

Interview with Gianluca Belotti from IRIS (AgriMax project coordinator)

1. [BioRefineries Blog] AgriMax is focused on the valorization of agricultural waste and sidestreams of the food processing industry through biorefining processes. What are the specific feedstocks to be studied during the project?

[Gianluca Belotti] AgriMax will develop a flexible and integrated biorefinery approach to convert into valuable products the wastes generated during the production and processing of tomatoes, potatoes, olives and cereals.

2. [BRB] This is mainly a demo project. In fact, it will deliver two pilot plants to demonstrate innovating processing technologies. Could you briefly explain what these technologies are and the way to combine them in the pilot plants?

[GB] Different treatment will be used among which: thermal, enzymatic, extraction, ultrasound, sedimentation, filtration and centrifugation. The techniques will be combined in a cascading approach to pretreat, fractionate, convert and upgrade the raw materials and then to recover the target compounds.

3. [BRB] What are the expected bioproducts to be developed and their impacts?

[GB] We're going to deliver several products: food ingredients, materials for agriculture, bioFertilizers, biopackaging and chemicals.

The application sectors will be:

- Safe and environmentally friendly Bio-Packaging (bioplastic flexible and rigid packaging, active and barrier packaging, biobased coatings for metal packaging, biocomposites, as well as secondary packaging).

- Healthier and functional Food products (additives, ingredients, coatings, microorganisms used in production, enhanced food products).

- Bio-based Agriculture products (bioplastics embedding fertilisers based solutions for biodegradable mulching films and pots as well as biofertilisers with biostimulant and biocontrol properties).

4. [BRB] Could you add some detail about the monitoring system to follow the biorefinery process that IRIS will develop?

[GB] IRIS will develop a NIR based optical system, optionally combined with other techniques, to provide an affordable, quick and powerful solution to optimise the processing of each selected feedstock. This solution will allow the online monitoring of critical parameters of the biocompounds such as protein, polyphenols contents colour and others.

5. [BRB] Regarding to organization aspects, the consortium is comprised by a large number of members. How it will be managed? What is the role of IRIS?

[GB] The first role of IRIS, as coordinator, is to ensure the smooth execution of the project, supervising and guiding the technical operations, disseminating and communicating the project results, and being the interface with the EC.

Acknowledgements: I would like to express my appreciation to Carlota Feliu (Marketing Manager at IRIS) and Gianluca Belotti (PMO Officer at IRIS) for their kind collaboration.