New White Paper on Sustainable Food & Drink Waste Management
In a collaborative effort, Model2Bio has recently unveiled a White Paper on Sustainable Food & Drink Waste Management, featuring substantial contributions from MixMatters.
This comprehensive resource explores the intricacies of food and drink waste management, offering insights, analyses, and recommendations. The primary aim is to showcase the vast potential of agri-food by-products while addressing challenges that may impede their optimal utilization.
Highlighting key agri-food by-products in Europe, such as potato steam peels, cheese whey, brewer’s spent grain, grape seeds & peels, and olive leaves, the white paper discusses innovative treatments and value chains. It emphasizes both challenges and opportunities for sustainable valorisation.
The document underscores the biorefinery approach, utilizing by-products as substrates to generate high-value products—from biodegradable films to antioxidants and biofuels. This aligns with the growing demand for sustainable solutions and circular economies.
Moreover, the white paper places importance on advanced decision support tools, introducing the Model2Bio tool based on mathematical models. This tool predicts agri-food residual streams and identifies optimal routes for valorisation, considering technical, economic, environmental, and social factors.
With MixMatters making significant contributions, the white paper addresses barriers and limitations to valorisation. The collaborative effort calls for commitment from stakeholders across the value chain, including producers of by-products, consumers of value-added products, and policymakers. This initiative paves the way for a more sustainable and circular approach to food and drink waste management.
The project is supported by the Circular Bio-based Europe Joint Undertaking (CBE JU) and its members – Bio-based Industries Consortium (BIC).
