The aim of this Living Lab is to demonstrate innovative processing solutions which can be marketed as a service for optimizing the processing of surplus fruits and vegetables which would otherwise go to waste.

The technological feasibility and economic viability of the business model and how the revenues could or should be distributed throughout the new potential value chain(s) will be studied. 

Underutilized produce

But transporting relatively small and seasonal food surplus quantities to valorisation facilities is prohibitive due to the cost. Consequently, significant volumes of high-quality produce remain unutilized or are used as feed or for biogas, while opportunities exist for turning them into high added-value food products like juice or puree. 

Moreover, their availability is variable and hence the equipment needed to deal with the processing of these fractions into stabilized, added value intermediate or end products needs to be flexible and versatile.

Such processing capacity is not available in most places but is highly wanted/needed, especially at critical timepoints in almost every production season, i.e. due to surplus production, climatic conditions, a storm destroying fruit & vegetables for fresh market, or a crisis (i.e. Covid-19, Russian boycott of EU import of pomefruit, war in Ukraine).

Mobile processing unit

This Living Lab will evaluate and demonstrate the possibility of marketing a mobile processing unit built in another EU project, the Food in a Box project (FOX), as a service.