LOWINFOOD project

What the Region does

Reduction of food losses and waste is one of the European Union’s priorities, at the moment when the food system is facing crucial sustainability challenges. Annually in the EU around 88 million tonnes of food are lost or wasted all along the agri-food value chain, about 20% of the total amount, from primary production to final consumption.  As a consequence, there is a tremendously high waste of environmental resources such as soil, water and other agricoltural inputs used to produce food. During the 4 year project, a series of innovations are going to be put in place to reduce the food loss and waste in three value chains particularly affected by this problem (fruit & vegetables, bakery and fish production and transformation), in addition to specific solutions to prevent food waste at the consumer level, including food service and household.

Tuscia University, based in Viterbo, is the coordinator of this project that involves 27 partners from several disciplines from 12 European countries: universities, research institutes, start-ups, foundations, associations and companies working in the food sector. The partners will provide a variety of technology, social and management solutions that are going to be tested on different agri-food value chains in order to evaluate their impact on the reduction of food waste and on the improvement of socio-economic and environmental performances.

Emilia-Romagna Region has been identified as a reference partner due to its proven experience in the food waste prevention: the software platform to manage CAP Food Surplus withdrawals is considered extremely innovative at european level.

Our innovative software can be used to promote and make the market withdrawals easier, in relation to CAP funds destined to crisis prevention and management: the system allows to distribute fresh fruit and vegetables to authorized charity organizations and to constantly monitor the amount of donated food. Thanks to the participation in this project, Emilia-Romagna Region can gain credit at European level as region of excellence to spread this model and, possibly, to propose the institutionalization of the platform to the European Commissione.

Total EU funding: euro 5.534.161

Budget RER: euro 195.579,18

Duration of the project: 52 months

Project start date: 01.11.2020

Project end date: 28. 02.2025

Website: https://lowinfood.eu/