Abstract
Attention to food waste is an increasingly growing phenomenon today, especially in the context of a circular economy. The InnovaEcoFood project investigates the use of by-products of the Piedmontese rice and wine production chains to valorize their untapped potential in the food sector by applying the Systemic Design approach. We collected, systematized, and visualized a range of solutions for exploiting these by-products, starting from an in-depth literature review on the two value chains. With the support of a consortium of partners from both multidisciplinary industrial and academic sectors, it was possible to validate the links that have been generated. Eventually, the project created food products that integrated these outputs as ingredients (like flour and butter) because they have antioxidant properties and are rich in proteins. InnovaEcoFood has successfully tested how value could be created from waste. Moreover, using rice hull, marc flour, and bran lipid (butter) is of immediate technical and economic feasibility. It could be considered a viable way that deserves further experimentation.
Highlights
Attention to food waste is an increasingly growing phenomenon today, especially in the context of a circular economy
More often the origins of the circular economy (CE) are attributed to more recent theories such as regenerative design, performance economy, cradle to cradle, biomimicry and blue economy, that contribute to the further refinement and development of the concept of CE [6,21]
In Europe, CE primarily emerged in Germany in 1976 with the Waste Disposal Act, while at European Community level CE was promoted much later, through the Waste Directive 2008/98/EC [22] and with the Circular Economy Package [6,23,24]
Summary
Attention to food waste is an increasingly growing phenomenon today, especially in the context of a circular economy. The project aims to demonstrate that the competitiveness of companies can be improved using Systemic Design (SD) as an approach, going beyond the concept of recycling waste, by promoting the creation of value from by-products considering them as value-added raw materials This project applies the latest technologies to enhance the unexploited qualities of agricultural waste, production processes and transformation by-products of the two supply chains to obtain environmental, economic and social benefits. SD approach is used to investigate the two traditional Piedmontese supply chains, comparing the current state of exploitation of the outputs or by-products of the production processes with the value creation obtained with the systemic approach
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
