Activities

LIFE GLEANSMART will reshape the paradigm of fruit food losses by proving a tested methodology to strategically plan new harvesting and gleaning procedures to improve the farmers competitiveness and to decrease the food losses by their upcycling, introducing those non-harvested fruits into a new circular value chain. In this way, a new tool will be used to reduce greenhouse gases derived from food waste.

• Objective 1 – To demonstrate the feasibility of an innovative circular value chain based on gleaning for upcycling fruit that is usually lost or wasted.
• Objective 2 – To develop and validate a holistic platform to support sustainable fruit “savings” based on an advanced data-driven Decision Support Tool (DST)
• Objective 3 – To solve the currently statistical gap in the fruit sector both in Spain and the rest of EU in terms of quantifying field fruit losses and waste by a robust methodology and advanced tools.
• Objective 4 – To define a suitable methodology for defining a sustainable and profitable gleaning strategy based either on robotic technologies or on manual harvesting and selection of uncollected fruit.
• Objective 5 – To enhance capacities of EU fruit producers and public actors to prevent more than 25% food waste and losses at the primary production stage of the fruit value chain.
• Objective 6 – To demonstrate the feasibility of processing and reusing saved fruit into powdered upcycled ingredients for food products or other added-value products.
• Objective 7 – To improve the sustainability of the EU fruit value chain by an innovative circular economy systemic solution contributing to its resource efficiency and green transformation.
• Objective 8 – To demonstrate the commercial viability of equipment and support services, to trigger investment for the long-term growth of the project.
• Objective 9 – To ensure project results will be replicated beyond its geographical and thematic scope.
• Objective 10 – To ensure a wide adoption of the GLEANSMART methodology at EU level and the longstanding uptake of the project results by engaging and cooperating with private stakeholders as well as public entities and advocate for a gleaning-friendly regulation at EU level.