If food loss and waste (FLW) were a country, it would be the third leading cause of greenhouse gas emissions. FLW also burdens waste management systems and exacerbates food insecurity, , contributing significantly to the three global crises of climate change, nature and biodiversity loss, and pollution and waste. PRECIOUS, an transdisciplinary alliance of 20 entities from 11 EU countries, believes that reliable data on the environmental impacts of FLW is crucial for accelerating EU progress towards climate targets and reducing environmental impacts (including biodiversity) across the food supply chain. The project´s collective understanding is that the challenge goes beyond measuring the amount of food saved or CO2 emissions. When food is wasted, valuable and limited resources such as water, land use, and energy are lost, while 8.9% of the worldwide population is suffering from hunger accordingto FAO, therefore, depleting the planet's natural resources. It is critical to broaden our understanding of the issue to transform the food system and raise public awareness that motivate change. PRECIOUS aims to contribute to the transformation of food systems by addressing existing data gaps and developing a unified and openly accessible evaluation framework to quantify the economic, environmental, and social impacts of strategies to reduce FLW, taking into account potential rebound effects. The project will engage stakeholders from 2 Use Cases (Spain and Greece) and 3 Co-creation and Replication Nodes (Poland, Lithuania, Hungary) to address systemic causes across geographical boundaries. The project aims to induce a fundamental change in attitudes and behaviours towards food consumption and disposal through collaborative efforts and innovative methods, fostering a more just and sustainable EU food system.

PLANTOMYC is a transformative initiative aiming to reshape the landscape of the alternative protein sector. It aims to bridge the versatile benefits of plant-based proteins with the functional and organoleptic (taste, aroma, texture) advantages of mycelial protein biomass (MPB) and develop innovative minimally processed hybrid meat analogues that are both healthy, and tasty. The project promotes sustainability by upcycling underutilized circular substrates such as starch rich pea protein by-product, and brewers spent grains to produce MPB by submerged fermentation (SmF) and solid-state fermentation (SSF), respectively. Envisioning a near-zero waste process design, PLANTOMYC proposes converting the broth from SmF into a Gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) enriched beverage and / or a flavorful bouillon. Adopting a multi-actor approach, the project addresses challenges related to consumer preferences, technological scaling, and regulatory requirements. Notably, the impact of PLANTOMYC’s product prototypes on nutritional, functional (gut health & metabolic syndrome), techno-functional, and sensory properties will be assessed thoroughly. Moreover, to advance PLANTOMYC’s TRL, we perform a comprehensive impact assessment for the adoption of these products, utilizing our consortium’s industrial end-users. PLANTOMYC will significantly increase the competitiveness of European alternative protein initiatives. It will accelerate the sector by offering an open-access knowledge platform, introducing new production concepts for hybrid meat analogues, increasing resource independence and efficiency, providing new market opportunities for industrial partners like Millow, BRØL, and Lantmännen, increasing the affordability of alternative proteins, and reducing the environmental footprint of protein production

The current exploitation of the aquatic resources is hampered by inefficiency as up to 70 % end up as low-value products or waste, which is unsustainable considering the rising populations. In order to utilise this currently poorly exploited biomass for higher value purposes, provision of proper logistics and infrastructure to ensure high quality of side-streams for a prolonged window of time is essential. Also promising technologies currently available at lab level need to be adapted to industrial scale and integrated into a biorefinery approach. The objective of the STREAMLINE project is to solve challenges that prevents more sound exploitation of the aquatic resources. This will be obtained by developing, sorting technologies, storage solutions and decision tools that will secure an efficient, sustainable supply system for by-catches, as well as for solid and liquid side-streams from aquaculture, fisheries and the aquatic processing industries to biorefining operations. This will result in valorisation of these raw materials into marketable products. By addressing side-streams from six different raw materials emerging from typical aquaculture, fisheries and aquatic processing industries in Europe, STREAMLINE will take a whole chain perspective to succeed with high quality production of: i) bioactive peptides for nutraceutical, food and feed applications, ii) protein-based food ingredients, iii) savoury ingredients and mineral supplements for food and feed. STREAMLINE will also construct biorefining approaches and validate selected solutions in pilot scale at the premises of participating companies. The commercial potential of the produced ingredients will be evaluated and specific environmental, economic and social impacts of the proposed solutions will be quantified. Several of the developed technologies will be transferable across seafood companies. STREAMLINE addresses all the objectives described for BBI 2018. SO1.R1.

The BioBIVE Consortium is a multidisciplinary 16 members group of universities, research centres and SMEs from 6 different European countries aimed to achieve, as main objective: “the development of bio-based platforms to allow the controlled release of bio-active agents able to control the plant pathogens of horticultural crops helping to decrease the use of chemical pesticides”. The general objective is based on three different bio-based release platforms (bio-plastic mulch, biochar and sprayable mulch) and three bio-active agents (basic substances, microorganisms and marine phenolic compounds),which will be the starting point to achieve the final best formulation. The functionality of these bio-based delivery systems that use substances from natural sources against crop pathogens instead of chemical pesticides must be evaluated in laboratory, greenhouse and environmental conditions, using diverse cropping systems (e.g., carrots, strawberries, tomatoes) and techniques, which are part of the BioBIVE Partners expertise.

Agriculture soils are being heavily affected by climate change and are highly vulnerable to degradation and desertification, particularly in the Mediterranean and southern regions of the EU. If climate change is not mitigated, yields of crops like wheat, maize and sugar beet could decrease in southern EU by up to 50 % by 2050. Although agriculture has been signalled as a significant contributor to GHG emissions (13% of EU total emissions), it is also one of the sectors with the biggest potential to adapt to and mitigate climate change. In this sense, Carbon Farming appears as a promising solution for soils’ health and for the sustainability of EU agriculture. LILAS4SOILS will put in place 5 Living Labs (LLs) in 6 countries to co-create the adoption of Carbon Farming solutions within farmers, agri-food businesses, researchers and local authorities, and implement Carbon Farming Practices -CFPs- (peatland management, agroforestry, livestock and manure management, and nutrient management, maintaining soil organic carbon) in 85-100 demo-sites. CFPs impact on soil carbon sequestration and environmental co-benefits will be assessed through the adoption of homogeneous Monitoring, Reporting and Verification (MRV) technologies. The 5-year project involves 24 expert partners, +25 stakeholders will part of each LL for interdisciplinary knowledge exchange (20 co-creation workshops to be held) and +71 farmers will be engaged in CFPs implementation, ensuring the multi-actor approach. 10 training workshops (supported by 21 materials), 10 policy workshops (supported by 2 sets of recommendations per LL), 8 cross-fertilisation and synergies workshops and 2 replication workshops within other regions in EU are envisaged as part of the project's focus on knowledge transfer. Through directed Open Calls, LILAS4SOILS will encourage the participation of 35-50 additional farmers and support the testing of 15 MRV innovative technologies that overcome the limitations of the conventional ones.