INGREEN Project

INGREEN is an EU-funded project that will develop functional innovative ingredients from paper and agro-food side streams through biotechnological processes for food, feed, pharmaceuticals, nutraceuticals, cosmetics and biodegradable packaging.

This 3,5-year project will develop new chemicals, new materials, and new consumer products from whey, wheat and rye brans, and paper milling wastewater.

INGREEN will demonstrate in real operational environments sustainable and efficient tailor-made biotechnologies and eco-friendly approaches to produce safe and/or health promoting microbial biomasses and biochemicals, as well as functional ingredients of interest for several industrial sectors.

Innovative bio-based prototypes will be developed and where possible packaged in biodegradable solutions tailored for food, feed, pharmaceutical, and cosmetic needs.

INGREEN is a partnership between a number of organisations from the agricultural, food and industrial sectors. The direct involvement of the eight SMEs, four large industries and four academic partners well-experienced in knowledge transfer are key to devise scale up strategies and work plans needed to speed up the successful market introduction of the innovative bio-based processes and final products.

Project technical details:
Start date: 1 June 2019
Duration: 3,5 years
Call: H2020-BBI-JTI-2018
Coordinator: INEUVO Ltd

Impact

Even though our natural resources are depleting, the demand for high-quality ingredients and products continues to grow. Therefore, an important part of achieving zero waste is the optimisation of the use of all materials in production processes. INGREEN will focus on finding new ways to use by-products and side streams from the production processes of very common products, namely paper, bread and cheese. Biotechnology will be developed to capture these potential valuable sources of bio-based compounds suitable for exploitation.

As the project develops products and production processes capable of valorising three currently underutilized types of wastes and by-products, it will also provide a number of societal and environmental benefits, including:

  • Lowering the environmental impact of existing production processes
  • Reducing wasting disposal and the carbon footprint of production
  • Improving the availability of health-promoting foods
  • Developing foods with longer shelf life to reduce food waste
  • Increasing wellbeing by developing functional food ingredients
  • Improving the mineral availability of foods to tackle micronutrient malnutrition
  • Reducing the farming industry’s reliance on prophylactic antibiotics by developing animal feeds enriched with prebiotics to benefit the health of livestock
  • Addressing global growing demand for bio-based chemicals, ingredients and products
  • Changing societal attitudes towards bio-based products
  • Improving the industrial eco-sustainability
  • Reducing the environmental impact of traditional plastic packaging by the set up of innovative biodegradable solutions