Online marketplace connects agricultural actors to enable buying and selling of agricultural waste and raw materials to biorefineries for production of value-added, biobased products.
From farmers to consumers, vast amounts of agricultural and food waste are being generated throughout the whole supply chain. Around one-third of all food produced each year is wasted and a significant proportion of this is at the field and food processing levels. In Europe, around 90 million tonnes of food and 700 million tonnes of crops are wasted every year.
The Agrimax project launched an innovative online marketplace which enables crop producers, food processers and agricultural cooperatives to sell their waste as feedstock for biorefineries to create value-added, innovative products.
Coordinated and managed by IRIS Technology Solutions in Spain, the marketplace connected actors by enabling producers to share details of the produce or raw materials they have for sale (product type, stock amount, form of product, availability) and the buyer can define the details of the product which they require (product type, quantity, form of product) for use in biorefineries to valorise waste streams.
The project trialled a new marketplace with two partner biorefineries in Spain and Italy. The goal was to improve agricultural sustainability and reduce waste, while also securing a continuous supply of feedstock for the biorefineries. Furthermore, the initiative aimed to create new income for producers by adding value to waste streams and to develop new bio-based compounds for the chemical, food-packaging, and agricultural sectors.
Recent years has seen green biorefinery research being undertaken in Ireland, with biorefineries having the potential to support the development of new business models and farmer diversification into the circular bioeconomy, changing the role of farmers from suppliers of biomass to producers of finished and semi-finished products.
Find out more about this innovation by contacting Leo at leo@erinn.eu. For more innovations like this, visit our Innovation Hub.
