Continuing population and consumption growth are driving global food demand, with agricultural activity increasing to keep pace. Europe has a major agricultural waste problem, generating some 700 million tonnes of waste annually. There is an urgent need and huge opportunity to address the efficient use of agricultural wastes, co-products and by-products (AWCB) towards delivering sustainable value chains in the farming and processing sectors. As such, AgroCycle will convert low value agricultural waste into highly valuable products, achieving a 10% increase in waste recycling and valorisation by 2020. This will be achieved by developing a detailed and holistic understanding of the waste streams and piloting a key number of waste utilisation/valorisation pathways. It will bring technologies and systems from ~TRL4 to ~TRL7 within the 3 years of the project. A post-project commercialisation plan will bring commercially promising technologies/systems to TRL8 and TRL9, ensuring AgroCycle will have an enduring impact by achieving sustainable use of AWCB both inside and outside the agricultural sector, leading to the realisation of a Circular Economy. AgroCycle addresses wastes from several agricultural sectors: wine, olive oil, horticulture, fruit, grassland, swine, dairy and poultry. The AgroCycle consortium is a large (25) multi-national group (including China) comprising the necessary and relevant multi-actors (i.e. researchers; companies in the technical, manufacturing, advisory, retail sectors (Large and SMEs); lead users; end users; and trade/producer associations) for achieving the project’s ambitions goals. Farming’s unique regional (rural) location means that AgroCycle will help reduce the EU’s Innovation Divide and address the Regional Smart Specialisation Strategies for each partner country: impact will be Regional with National and International dimensions. The presence of three partners from China ensures international synergies and a global impact.

Veterinary research shows that up to 45% of cats and dogs suffer health disorders, with oxidative effects from nutritional imbalances as a significant contributing factor. Of the approximately 270 million pets in the EU, 60% have commercial pet food exclusively as their source of nutrition and therefore depend on a complete and balanced product for health and wellbeing. The PetLife project is based on a promising market and growth opportunity deriving from our current L-Cysteine derivative product line for use in plant nutrition. This latent cysteine is released into the plant gradually, providing its organism with several essential health benefits that extend to animals as well. AXEB is set to be the first in Europe and globally to validate and introduce L-cysteine derivatives as nutritional additives for animals, to solve the problem of providing cysteine without causing nutritional imbalances and weight gain. The health benefits to be proved in phase 2 validation will convince pet owners and feed manufacturers of the worth of these new added-value formulations. Our objective is to take advantage of our know-how in order to broaden the use of this innovative compound as an animal nutrient and access the EU pet food industry and European pet owners who spend up to €21,000 on each pet over its lifetime, and €55 per pet every year on veterinary care. When scaled up to industrial production, the proposed PetLife L-Cysteine derivatives will be commercialized with a target price 25% cheaper than current pet food additives, and provide more long-ranging health benefits to reduce end user veterinary expenses. Although we already possess the knowledge in biotechnology processes for molecule synthesis, we require assistance to enter the pet food market due to the rigorous regulatory approval process for new additives in the European market. The possibility of European funding will help us cross the ‘valley of death’ from development to marketplace.

MyToolBox mobilises a multi-actor partnership (academia, farmers, technology SMEs, food industry and policy stakeholders) to develop novel interventions aimed at achieving a 20-90% reduction in crop losses due to fungal and mycotoxin contamination. MyToolBox will not only pursue a field-to-fork approach but will also consider safe use options of contaminated batches, such as the efficient production of biofuels. A major component of MyToolBox, which also distinguishes this proposal from previous efforts in the area mycotoxin reduction, is to provide the recommended measures to the end users along the food and feed chain in a web-based Toolbox. Cutting edge research will result in new interventions, which will be integrated together with existing measures in the Toolbox that will guide the end user as to the most effective measure(s) to be taken to reduce crop losses. We will focus on small grain cereals, maize, peanuts and dried figs, applicable to agricultural conditions in EU and China. Crop losses using existing practices will be compared with crop losses after novel pre-harvest interventions including investigation of genetic resistance to fungal infection, cultural control, the use of novel biopesticides (organic-farming compliant), competitive biocontrol treatment and development of forecasting models to predict mycotoxin contamination. Research into post-harvest measures including real-time monitoring during storage, innovative sorting of crops using vision-technology and novel milling technology will enable cereals with higher mycotoxin levels to be processed without breaching regulatory limits in finished products. Research into the effects of baking on mycotoxin levels will provide better understanding of process factors used in mycotoxin risk assessment. Involvement of leading institutions from China are aimed at establishing a sustainable cooperation in mycotoxin research between the EU and China.