Sustainable Processing of Agrofood Residues to Elicitors and Chemicals

The SPAREC project focuses on sustainable processes from both an environmental and an economical point of view, addressing the concept of circular economy. It is designed using an integrated biorefinery concept, which ensures a comprehensive use of material and energetic resources, while food residues are valorized, reusing valuable components at the farm and at industrial level. Innovative solutions to waste streams in the wine and fruit juice industries are looked for in this project, extracting medium to high-added value mixtures that are or can be used as ingredients, chemicals and additives in the food; chemical and cosmetic industries; or as plant immune-system elicitors in green-houses and farms, reducing the need for agrochemicals. Processes to value-added products from wastes are physical, chemical, physicochemical, enzymatic and microbiologic, and products will be tested for their antioxidant and plant immune system elicitor capacity, this latter at lab, pilot-plant and field scales. Therefore, the proposed strategies will reduce waste treatment costs, while improving economics at the food industry and farm levels.

Therefore, the proposed strategies will reduce waste treatment costs, while improving economics at the food industry and farm levels.