Lowinfood celebrated its General Project Meeting in Vienna
Last 24 and 25 February 2022, Lowinfood celebrated its general project meeting. In order to overcome problems linked to the international mobility, a hybrid format was arranged: some partners physically joined in Vienna (Austria), while some others were remotely connected to the meeting.
The meeting was held at the Universität für Bodenkultur Wien (BOKU), where Lowinfood project was firstly conceived, three years ago: after more than one year on the go, the same place is hosting the first semi-physical meeting.
During the first-day meeting both plenary and parallel sessions focused on the evaluation of the innovations. Several tools were used during the evaluation process: interviews, surveys, data collected from innovations’ database and companies, direct measurements to collect data on food waste and composition and expert consultation to fill the gaps or complement information.
The second day of the Project Meeting was dedicated to networking among the partner companies with common interests and competencies. The participants were divided into four groups to allow specific discussions on their area of expertise: 1. technological innovations oriented to forecasting food demand; 2. technological innovations aimed at inducing behavioural change; 3. social innovations and 4. organisational innovations.
In the beginning, two experts from BOKU offered interesting lectures: first Marianne Penker, Professor for Rural Sociology and Rural Development at the BOKU Institute for Sustainable Economic Development, described the historical development of the agri-food sector and its impact on the current food chain. Then, Gudrun Obersteiner, Senior Lecturer at University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences and Deputy Head Institute of Waste Management, shared with participants several tips and data about the importance of monitoring and evaluation of greenhouse gases (GHG) footprint generated by food waste.
The General Project Meeting ended with a recap about the discussed topics and with updates about the state-of-the-art of the innovations, as well as about the forthcoming steps they are planning to take.
Click to download the project meeting agenda
Click to visit the photo gallery of the event