VALORAFOOD 2.0 – Development of technologies for the reuse of by-products from fish production

According to the consumer study carried out by the Generalitat de Catalunya in 2020, entitled ‘Analysis of the Catalan fish and seafood consumer’, the Catalan consumer considers fish and seafood to be essential products in the diet due to their nutritional values. There is an increasing number of fish processing companies that make filleted, clean and ready-to-eat fish available to the consumer. During this processing, the company obtains the product according to the accepted sales needs, however, there are a series of remains that are currently not valorised, which are thrown away as waste or are destined for animal feed. These remains are suitable for human consumption and may represent 50% of the production.

This project stems from a series of previous projects that have led to the study and development of by-product recovery in the participating companies. The first project, LONJA DE FUTUROS analysed the logistics of connecting producer with processor within strict food safety controls, among other factors. The second, VALORAFOOD, quantified the surpluses, volumes and regularity of the different species to be valorised in order to obtain small prototypes of revalued products.

The present VALORAFOOD 2.0 project is the continuation of the work that has been carried out so far, in the development of innovative products with fishery by-products in which these by-products currently have a very low or practically null economic value.

The main objective of Valorafood 2.0 is the development of innovative products from the by-products of the fish filleting industry using various technologies for food use and to improve their revaluation.

To achieve these objectives, it includes various actions, such as the identification and quantification of surpluses, adaptation of the manufacturing and packaging technology of the by-products, implementation of a production process and the study of scalability. In addition, the dissemination of the project and the results of the innovation will be carried out.

Participants: ICELAND SEAFOOD IBERICA S.A.U (Leader), FRIME (beneficiary), SERHS FOOD (non-beneficiary), MERITEM (non-beneficiary), ICELNAD OCEAN CLUSTER (non-beneficiary), PORT DE BARCELONA (non-beneficiary), MERCABANA (non-beneficiary), RADI (contracto nología Agroalimentarias IRTA (OPI).

Action of the Strategic Plan of the PAC 2023-2027 co-funded by: