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Project Topic
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The Mediterranean diet (MD) represents a set of skills, knowledge, practices, and traditions ranging from landscape to table, between crops, harvesting, fishing, food processing, and, in particular, food consumption. The MD is a nutritional model that has remained constant over time and space, consisting mainly of olive oil, cereals, fresh or dried fruit, and vegetables. Nowadays, the strong demand for adequate nutrition is accompanied by concern about environmental issues and a considerable emphasis is paid on recovery and recycling of food by-products and wastes. The transition towards more sustainable food systems, as a new “Farm to Fork Strategy”, requires the involvement of all actors of the food systems with the final goal to provide healthy, adequate, safe, nutritious, and sustainable food to everyone, taking into account the three pillars of sustainability: environmental, economic and societal. The Oli4food proposal aims to increase the adherence to MD removing the main barriers to consumption of olive-based products by a consumer-centered-design strategy. In particular, the proposal intends to apply a biotechnological sustainable production system to valorise by-products of olive oil extraction to satisfy the demand of taste acceptability, cultural identity, and economic accessibility. Besides, formulation/reformulation of the olive oil- and olive-based products will be carried out in order to enhance the diversity of healthy olive based food products. Oli4food proposes to apply, at an industrial scale, a process based on an integrated multidisciplinary approach, using selected microbial pools for valorising olive-based products through a biological de-bittering process and addition of probiotic selected strains. In order to exploit resilient biodiversity, each partner in Mediterranean countries (Italy, Turkey, Spain, Germany, Egypt and Morocco) will focus on local olive cultivars and autochthonous selected microorganisms will be used to reduce the bitter taste of olive-based products. Safety traits, bioactive compounds availability, probiotic survival, and sensorial traits will be evaluated. Besides, new approaches such as an antifungal spray formulation by using olive oil by-products or non-thermal techniques including high hydrostatic pressure will be studied in order to overcome the microbial spoilage of table olive and olive based products during shelf-life. Furthermore, the health benefits of olive-based products will be proven through a cell culture study to analyze the ability of phenolic metabolites to modulate anti-inflammatory activities by evaluating macrophage cell line. Finally, to increase the adherence to the MD pattern, a communication strategy will be defined for raising awareness on healthy diet behavior, encouraging the audiences to contribute to collective sensing. Oli4food will foster a sense of co-responsibility, increase motivation and willingness, to adopt a sustainable lifestyle model, and to promote the new olive-based products in a -Mediterranean lifestyle concept. The market analysis, the exploitation plan, and the techno-economic feasibility at the consumer and industrial level will also be performed. In line with the Implementation of Research and Innovation in the Agro-food chain, promoting higher quality, sustainability, and competitiveness, with particular reference to smallholders, Oli4food will contribute to enrich the portfolio of products derived from olives, to promote and extend the adherence to the MD pattern, among consumers, demolishing the main barriers due to the high salt content (for table olives), and specifically among younger adults (who do not prefer the residual bitter taste of olives).
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