A project coordinated by the BETA Technological Center will position Catalonia as a European benchmark in reducing food waste

Catalonia has been working to prevent food loss and waste for some years, through the Catalan Ministry of Climate Action, Food and Rural Agenda and the Catalan Waste Agency. In fact, Catalonia is the first region in Europe to have specific legislation in this area: Law 3/2020. This law is a pioneering regulation in defining the food losses that take place in primary production, and incorporating them in prevention and sustainability policies for the food chain and involving its operators in the issue. One of the objectives of the European FOLOU project, which is coordinated being by the BETA Technological Center at the University of Vic - Central University of Catalonia (UVic-UCC) is to compile the experience accumulated to date, and add it to the new knowledge that will be generated with the pilot tests and case studies in the new project. Catalonia will thereby position itself as a European benchmark in the development of strategies to reduce losses and food waste in the primary sector.

The meeting to launch the FOLOU project, in which the Ministry of Climate Action, Food and Rural Agenda and the Catalan Waste Agency are major partners, took place at the BETA Technological Center this afternoon. The presentation of the project was attended by Joan Gòdia, the director general of Food, Quality and Gastronomy Companies of the Generalitat de Catalunya; Josep Eladi Baños, the rector of UVic-UCC; Sergio Ponsá, director of the BETA Technological Center, and Isaac Peraire, director of the Catalan Waste Agency, among others.

Baños welcomed all those attending, and said that "an essential task of universities is to support society in solving its most pressing needs." In a context of various crises including overpopulation, global warming, an increasingly extreme climate and the energy crisis, "we all agree that the fight against food waste, the cornerstone of the FOLOU project, must be a priority," he said. The rector also emphasised that the BETA Technological Center represents the type of research that UVic-UCC aims to do - "with an international vision and vocation, which is innovative, applied and conscious, and provides solutions to real problems."

Ponsá presented the BETA Technological Center to the entire audience, highlighting the main areas in which it works and stressing the importance "that research can end up having an impact on society." Focusing on the FOLOU project, Ponsá pointed out the consequences of food waste from an economic, social and environmental point of view. In this regard, he added: "we must develop new methodologies and tools that will help us to quantify food waste and at the same time, study how to implement them." 

Gòdia then discussed the work that the Ministry of Climate Action, Food and Rural Agenda has been doing in the field of food loss and waste for many years. As examples, he mentioned Law 3/2020, with which "Catalonia is a pioneer in the prevention of food waste in the primary sector" and the Catalan Strategic Food Plan, which has contributed "to making Catalonia a sustainable country."

Knowledge transfer between regions

The FOLOU project, which will develop new methodologies and tools to reduce food losses and waste in the primary sector, will be working actively to transfer Catalonia's experience to other regions that need to design new methodologies suited to their circumstances to measure their own food waste. In the long term, the transfer of knowledge between regions and towards European institutions "must make it possible to harmonise the method of calculating food waste between different countries, and provide better records of national and European data," explained Joan Colón, the lead researcher on the FOLOU project at the BETA Technological Center.

The European Commission has established a common method and minimum requirements for reducing the amount of food waste at the national level. However, this is still a very general approach, which does not include all the specific characteristics which impact on the phenomenon of food waste. The FOLOU project therefore aims to help respond to the urgent need to create new methods for calculating the size of losses caused by food waste and to apply efficient short-term measures to help reduce it. "Food waste has a negative impact on society on many levels, it leads to food insecurity and has all kinds of environmental impacts," stressed Joan Colón. These impacts may include unnecessary greenhouse gas emissions, wastage of water resources, and the degradation of some ecosystems and their biodiversity.

Image recognition and artificial intelligence

The FOLOU project will have a technological side. "We hope to validate the use of six technologies applied in an innovative way in the control of food waste, including image recognition systems and artificial intelligence," said Colón. A major result of FOLOU will be the creation of a new sustainability assessment tool that enables the environmental, economic and social impacts arising from food waste to be quantified on an efficient, standardised and reliable basis, so that the stages of the chain of worth where action is required can be identified.

The main focus of the project will be on the primary production stage, which is the most difficult to monitor, given that it is very time-consuming or very expensive with the technical resources that are currently available. This stage mainly includes agriculture, aquaculture, fishing and other activities in the primary sector, where many food losses occur before the product is marketed, as well as in the handling and storage process. The World Wildlife Foundation estimates that the global figure for food waste can amount to 1.2 billion tonnes annually in the primary sector alone.

The FOLOU project, financed by the Horizon Europe programme of the European Commission, will work to ensure that the project's results are adopted by all the main stakeholders: primary producers, retailers, consumers, policymakers and researchers. Its overall budget will be almost 7 million Euros, and an international consortium made up of 16 partners will be working on the project. Apart from the participation of the Ministry of Climate Action, Food and Rural Agenda and the Catalan Waste Agency, the Spigolador Foundation is also involved.