Agro-food and Paper mill side streams and by-products are sources of unexploited organic fractions exploitable into safe microbial biomasses, functional ingredients and intermediates, e.g. prebiotics, pre-fermented ingredients, bioplastics and chemicals. The INGREEN bio-based ingredients/materials will be used to produce innovative functional products for food, feed, packaging, pharmaceutical, nutraceutical and cosmetic sectors. The INGREEN outcomes will be obtained by validated tailor made biotechnologies based on safe microorganisms or eco-friendly approaches. Logistics and storage conditions will be optimized to favor the flow from feedstock to the bio-based prototype producers. INGREEN aims to demonstrate in industrial environments the efficiency and sustainability of the target biotechnologies to produce i) lactobionic acid (LBA), galactooligosaccharides (GOS), microbial safe biomasses from whey; ii) polyhydrohyalkanoates (PHA) enriched biomasses and purified PHA, as prebiotics and bioplastics respectively, from paper mill wastewater; iii) functional pre-fermented ingredients from rye/wheat milling fractions. Safe and characterized INGREEN ingredients will be used for innovative functional cheeses, bakery products and nutritious feeds. Functional GOS, LBA and pre-fermented bran will be used to produce prebiotic immune-stimulating gel, nutraceutical supplement and cleanser for human health. INGREEN biodegradable material will be valorised into bag in box to boost INGREEN fluid prototype sustainability. Prototype safety, shelf-life, quality and functional performances will be compared to benchmarks. Also LCA/LCC, sound business cases and plans and compliance with REACH and any relevant EU safety legislation will be applied over the whole project to assess prototype benefits compared to benchmarks. INGREEN product specifications will contribute to define/standardize the regulatory requirements for outcome innovation deals, market uptake and societal acceptance.

In Europe, each year foodborne hazards, including bacteria, parasites, bacterial toxins and allergens, already cause more than 20 million cases of illness and thousands of deaths. Foodborne chemical risk, often associated with occurrence of toxins, are of growing concern. Food safety management systems established over the past decades in our European food businesses, and European food safety governance need to be adapted to make the food system more robust towards multiple stressor coming dynamically up (so as climatic impacts). FoodSafeR aims to design, develop and test the building blocks of an innovative pro-active and holistic food safety warning and management system with a look on the dynamics of emerging risks at its heart. FoodSafeR embodies integrated approaches to hazard characterisation and risk management in a comprehensive suite of future oriented case studies, tools, methods, strategies, models, guidance and training materials. An open and accessible digital hub designed to form a core of a sustaining information system will be set up as a ‘One-Stop-Shop’ vehicle targeted at risk managers and assessors, food safety authorities and the relevant actors and stakeholders operating in the European food system. To reach the ambitious goal, FoodSafeR has united a world-class consortium of 18 organisations from across 14 European countries integrating science, industry, SMEs and policymakers. FoodSafeR will contribute to prevent food safety incidences occuring from biological and chemical hazards in the European food system as well as relevant socio-economic impacts. By bringing this approach to a success, FoodSafeR contributes to ‘sustainable, healthy and inclusive food systems delivering co-benefits for climate mitigation and adaptation, environmental sustainability and circularity, sustainable healthy nutrition, safe food consumption, food poverty reduction, the empowerment of communities, and flourishing food business operations.

The overall aim of the MYCOBEANS project is to strengthen the collaboration and promote the excellence of the academic and non-academic institutions involved with the common goal of exploring the emerging risk due to the occurrence of mycotoxins in legumes intended as alternative plant proteins, and therefore increase the resilience of the beans and legumes sector. Thanks to its top-class partnership, MYCOBEANS will bring innovation in mycotoxins diagnostics, toxicological evaluation, and biotechnological mitigation along the entire plant protein supply chain. The consortium, led by the University of Parma, Italy, involves internationally-leading academic and non-academic partners from the EU, UK and ASEAN countries, and has been designed around the already existing network of the International Joint Research Center on Food Security, Thailand. The strong connectivity already in place among partners will ensure the knowledge and expertise transfer, help build new research alliances, and enrich staff and young researchers' capacities from all members of the consortium. Young researchers will be exposed to a very diverse and multidisciplinary environment, thus ensuring a quick professional growth. The specific objectives will be achieved through an extensive program of interdisciplinary and intersectoral short- and medium-term staff exchanges and expert visits, involving doctoral and postdoctoral researchers as well as senior staff, aimed at cross-pollination among scientific disciplines, from chemistry to toxicology, biotechnology, industrial processing as well as regulatory science. As a complement, a rich program of training workshops, seminars, summer schools and dissemination and outreach activities will ensure a significant impact both at a professional career level as well as for industry and society.

MED-GOLD will demonstrate the proof-of-concept for climate services in the agriculture sector by developing case studies for three hallmarks of the Mediterranean food system: grapes, olives and durum wheat. Agriculture is primarily climate-driven and hence highly vulnerable to climate variability and change. Evidence suggests that the Mediterranean region is under immediate threat of shifting climate patterns and the associated ecological, economic and social effects. Developing a capacity to turn the increasingly big climate-related data into tailored climate services that can inform decision-making in agriculture, is therefore a priority both in Europe and worldwide. The long-term goal of this project is to make European agriculture and food systems more competitive, resilient, and efficient in the face of climate change, by using climate services to minimize climate-driven risks/costs and seize opportunities for added-value. The MED-GOLD project aims to develop climate services for olive, grape, and durum wheat crop systems that are the basis for producing olive oil, wine and pasta. This set of crops and related food products is of utmost climatic, ecological, economic, and cultural relevance to the Mediterranean region. Because olive oil, wine and pasta are not only hallmarks of the Mediterranean diet but also food commodities with a global market, there is considerable potential for developing climate services with high added-value for olive, grape, and durum wheat. A key challenge is to co-design prototype pilot service applications involving both suppliers and users in the three major traditional Mediterranean crop systems so as to demonstrate the added-value of data/information-driven responses to changes in the climate system. The operational decision-making of users will be reviewed to either identify key decisions or introduce new actions that can benefit from climate-related information at different timescales from months to decades.