|
Project Topic
|
This project is part of the thematic area 3, more particularly in topic 3.2, which will deal with the agro-food products of the Mediterranean area and aims to: 1) Develop new citrus products more coherent with the actual market requests, in terms of service, sustainability and healthy contents using innovative soft technologies (High Hydrostatic Pressure, HPP, and Ultrasound, US) in order to preserve sensory and quality properties of the fresh foods. It will start from a varietal identification of citrus for industrial optimization. 2) New innovative packaging will be identified (by sensory and consumer tests) for new fresh products under suitable modified atmosphere packaging (MAP) (aluminium or plastic having a high service content). 3) Significantly contribute to solve the problem of industrial processing wastes by the extraction, using green methods, of bioactive compounds from agricultural and industrial citrus wastes and use these compounds in the pharmaceutical, biotechnology food industries. 4) Use the hydrogel which prepared from citrus wastes as soil improvers to increase the water-holding capacity and/or nutrient retention of sandy soils. The entire goal in the project will be reached following a “design thinking” process based on What-How-Why methodology starting from market requests and optimizing by a back-forward process the prototypes obtained from processing pilot plants. The whole project will be carried out by following Seven WPs scheme: WP1: Project Management, WP2: State of the art, training, demonstration and mobility activities: agronomical aspects (varieties, use of water, pests, reduction of chemical pesticides and use of organic and eco-friendly fertilizers), SWOT analysis (study on varieties and their processing availability and performances, scarcity of water, pests, reduction of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, bio versus traditional, introduction of green fertilizers and pesticides) in the participating countries. WP3: Fresh products, Modified Atmosphere Packaging (MAP) stabilization treatment, sensory and consumer optimization, shelf life, packaging, WP4: Use of innovative processing technology (HPP and US) to obtain a new segment of stable products having very high quality properties (optimization of processing conditions, P, t, sensory & consumer and shelf life studies), WP5: Valorization of all agricultural and industrial residues in order to extract, using green procedures, bio-functional molecules. Valorization of industrial wastes. WP6: Economical and social studies on the project. WP7 : Dissemination of the project results.
|
