Vitagora's projects - January 2021 bulletin

Results of Vitagora accredited projects

GASPPLI - A sensory application 2.0 to reduce food waste

Food waste generated by mass catering in France represents around 150_200g/meal, or 0.3-0.4€/meal. An establishment serving 500 covers pers day for an average of 200 days per year could generate 15-20 tons of food waste at an annual cost of 30,000-40,000€ (more information in the report Réduire le gaspillage alimentaire en restauration collective").

How can sensory analysis use an understanding of consumer preferences to reduce mass catering food waste? This question is at the heart of the GASPPLI project.

The goal of GASPPLI is to develop a system of qualitative and quantitative data collection regarding consumer behaviour in mass catering operations. Linked to a user interface for restaurant staff, it could be used to adapt menus and portion sizes for reduced waste.

The goals of GASPPLI are the following:

• Develop a fun, easy to use app, linked to a digital scale, allowing users to record the quantities of food consumed and wasted, as well as their perception, to be used in real operational conditions
• Define statistical methods in order to cross reference sensory data and food waste data
• Better understand the sensory determinants involved in food waste

Since its launch in May 2020, the project team has defined consumer user cases that has lead to the development of a prototype software centered on user experience. This prototype is built around a mobile app and a digital scale, communicating with a flash-code interface, and integrating a sensory-specific questionnaire. Already operational, the next step will be to pre-test this prototype in a student restaurant at the University of Burgundy, operated by CROUS BFC, using around 20 university students. The user interface test then lead to the first experimental test early in 2021. 

Coordinated by Sensostat, GASPPLI is funded by the Burgundy-Franche-Comté region via BPI France and the regional innovation fund. Page Up and CROUS BFC are also partners of the project, which will run for 18 months.

TOFoo -  Tools and methods for guaranteeing the authenticity of organic products

Organic food production involves additional costs compared to conventional agriculture. Consumers expect a guarantee of authenticity, in order to obtain real benefits from these products in terms of quality and environment impact. Beyond existing means of tracing or certification, responding to this expectation implies access to analytical tools for verifying that organic requirements have been met.

There is currently no solution on the market for this need cross-refernencing sufficiant data to confirm the authenticity of organic products. The goal of the ToFOO project is to develop tools for this purpose.

In order to guarantee the respect of authorised practices throughout the organic food production chain, the project will develop:

• Portable analytical devices, to carry out rapid, frequent, on-site tests. These will allow users to obtain "pre-alerts" of the integrity of their products.
• Reliable, robust laboratory authentification methods, to verify the pre-alerts or to carry out test in the context of quality assurence procedures for organic producers.

These analytical methods, whose performances will be optimised by emerging technologies, will incude:

• Non-targeted methods based on databases of several thousand samples, constituted during the project
• Identification methods of non-authorised food additives
• Interferometrics methods for identifying manufactured nanoparticles, non-authorised in organic products from 2022

These methods will be applicable to plant (fruit, vegetable, grains) and dairy products.

This project is co-accredited by Vitagora and Valorial, and is funded by the French PSPC fund. With a 5-year program, it has a budget of 17.3M€ and brings together 10 partners: Eurofins, Thermo Fisher Scientific, Myriade, Atol C&D, Bonduelle, the laboratories GEPEA and CEISAM of the University of Nantes, l’Institut Polytechnique UniLaSalle and Groupe de Recherche en Agriculture Biologique.

NOVATERRA - New integrated strategies for reducing the negative impact of pesticides in olive and wine growing in the Mediterranean

Vitagora is a partner of NOVATERRA, a H2020 project funded by the European Union, launched in October 2020. The goal of this project is to create an overall approach to ensuring access to safe and healthy food, and to respond to the EU's priorities and directives regarding sustainable pesticide use. Through a series of case studies in olive and grape growers in the Mediterranean region, the project aims to develop and test a range of novel, integrated and sustainable strategies that are technically and economically viable for various cropping systems, in order to eliminate or significantly reduce the negative impact of pesticides.

NOVATERRA thus aims to reduce pollution and environmental damage to non-targeted organisms, as well as acheiving the best economic sustainability for Mediterranean growers. The efficient novel strategies of NOVATERRA will lead to the integration of three key approaches:

• The use of alternative and natural protection products (biopesticides, biocontrol, innovative formulations) ;
• The use of an intelligent agricultural platform for a more precise application of plant protection products
• The testing of novel strategies for managing soils, functional biodiversity and robotics for the management of weeds, and for better plant health with a reduced use of chemicals.

The NOVATERRA consortium is directed by the Spanish institute of food research and technology (IRTA), alongside 19 other organisations from 6 countries (Spain, Portugal, France, Italy, Greece and Belgium), including Vitagora, in order to design, test and disseminate the new solutions.

Within the NOVATERRA project, Vitagora will coordinate the work package related to an audit of the use of pesticides in targeted crops in Europe. Due to the multi-player approach adopted by the project, this work package also takes into account the creation of a stakeholder network of external organisations: farmers, government organisations, scientific experts, olive oil and wine professional organisations, and consumer groups. These stakeholders will take part in a diagnostic phase on the use of pesticides in vineyards and olive groves, and will take part in discussion groups and workshops, as well as specific consultation exercises.

Vitagora is also involved in the work package for the communication/dissemination of the project's results, in order to maximise the impact of NOVATERRA among Metierranean regions and other areas of the southern and central European Union.

More information

Press contact:

Marthe Jewell, marthe.jewell@vitagora.com,

Tel.: +33 (0)3 80 78 97 92, Mob.: +33 (0)6 60 65 87 16