CTA (Technological Corporation of Andalusia) and its member company La Caña Group have participated this week in the consortium meeting of the European ZeroW project in Brussels (Belgium) to start working on the living labs aimed at reducing food waste.
CTA consultants José Luis Gallego and Macarena Ureña have participated in the meeting, in which they analysed the situation to be improved through the different living labs to be implemented by the ZeroW project, which are experimentation environments to co-create innovation focused on reducing food waste. The objectives, areas of innovation, technological needs and the steps to be taken were also discussed.
Andalusia hosts one of 9 European living labs
CTA and Grupo La Caña presented at the meeting the progress of the Andalusian living lab, which will also involve the Andalusian Institute for Agricultural, Fisheries, Food and Organic Production Research and Training (IFAPA), part of the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Sustainable Development of the Andalusian Regional Government, Grupo La Caña and the company Multiscan Technologies.
The project will set up nine living labs in Europe and develop evaluation activities to ensure the long-term environmental and economic sustainability of the solutions, as well as support the transition towards a system without food waste.
Real-life proven research and innovation processes
ZeroW is a project funded by the Horizon 2020 programme through the European Green Deal call, with a budget of €12M and the participation of 46 partners from 17 European countries.
The project aims to reduce food waste through the application of systemic innovations in ‘living labs’, i.e. experimental environments for co-creating innovation. Living labs are open, user-centred innovation ecosystems that integrate research and innovation processes in real-life communities and environments.
The objective of the Andalusian living lab is to assess the shelf life and retail compliance of fruit and vegetables, at an early stage, using non-destructive analysis and multi-attribute classification techniques. In this way, the overal objective is to reduce food waste at producer and retailer level.
