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Large-scale production of proteins for food and feed applications from alternative, sustainable sources - BBI.2017.F2
Deadline: Sep 7, 2017  
CALL EXPIRED

 Fisheries and Food
 Agriculture
 Aquaculture
 Clusters
 Innovation
 Environment
 Agricultural Biotechnology
 Horizon Europe
 Nutrition
 Research

Specific Challenge:

The worldwide demand for protein is progressively expanding due to strong growth in the world’s population. Improvements in the standard of living in large parts of the world are adding to the protein demand1. Forecasts to 2050 show that current protein availability will not be sufficient to meet protein demand for food purposes. At the same time, Europe is highly dependent on imports of protein-rich material for feeding livestock: about 70 % of the total amount required is imported. Already 60-70 % of global arable land is used for animal feed to meet animal protein demand1.

Consequently, the exploitation of new protein sources is necessary to meet the worldwide demand. European crops, together with residues and co-products from primary biomass cultivation, are valuable sources of proteins. Residues from animal processing, fisheries, aquaculture and algae industries also offer a potential, albeit currently underexploited, source of proteins. The bio-based industry could help to expand the production of protein-rich ingredients by valorising existing alternative sources from food/feed value chains and by taking full advantage of the successes of earlier (and ongoing) R&D and small-scale industrial operations.

The specific challenge is to demonstrate a large-scale, first-of-its-kind bio-based value chain producing sustainable, safe proteins sourced from alternative, sustainable sources (dedicated crops as well as residues), through a cascading approach where applicable2.

1 http://www.fao.org/docrep/013/i2050e/i2050e.pdf

2 For a Research and Innovation Action on proteins see Topic BBI 2017.R4.

Scope:

Produce on a large-scale food- and/or feed-grade proteins from sustainable alternative sources, such as residual streams from agriculture, other biomass production and related residual streams (like aquaculture, fisheries, or seaweed), or food industry side streams.

Proposals should include the whole value chain from the feedstock supply to processing and production steps for the targeted high added-value products. All relevant technologies in the different steps are applicable, provided they have been already proven at a significant scale (preferably demonstration levels TRLs 6-7, but at least pilot plant level TRL 5).

Proposals should focus primarily on proteins for food and feed applications. However, proposals could also consider functional proteins and other applications that may make it possible to generate new incomes and hence increase the overall sustainability of the value chains. Proposals should include extra valorisation steps through an integrated biorefinery setup.

Proposals need to take into account legislative limitations over the origin of the biomass feedstock when dealing with proteins for human or livestock nutrition. Proposals should include an assessment on safety, quality and purity for the target products, comparing them with the current (imported) proteins used for the same applications and end-products.

Proposals should also provide sound business models showing that sustainably produced feedstock streams are available in Europe, allowing to increase protein production in Europe and to reduce the imports of protein-rich products.

Proposals should specifically demonstrate the benefits versus the state-of-the-art and existing technologies. This could be done by providing evidence of new processing solutions and new products obtained. Proposals should demonstrate the techno-economic feasibility of the large-scale deployment of sustainable and efficient European value chains for proteins production.

The Technology Readiness Level (TRL)1 at the end of the project should be 8. Proposals should clearly state the starting TRL. The proposed work should enable the technology to achieve TRL 8 within the timeframe of the project.

Proposals should include an environmental, an economic and a social assessment using Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment (LCSA) methodologies Proposals should also include aviability performance check of the developed process(es) based on available standards, certification, accepted and validated approaches.

Proposals need to build on existing standardisation documents and allow for the necessary pre-and co-normative research into the development of new standardisation documents and validated approaches.

Indicative funding: It is considered that proposals requesting a contribution of maximally EUR 21 million would allow this specific challenge to be addressed appropriately. Nonetheless, this does not preclude the submission and selection of proposals requesting other amounts.

1 Technology Readiness Levels as defined in annex G of the General Annexes to the Horizon 2020 Work Programme: http://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/data/ref/h2020/other/wp/2016-2017/annexes/h2020-wp1617-annex-ga_en.pdf

Expected Impact:
  • contribute to KPI 1: create at least 2 new cross-sector interconnections in bio-based economy clusters;
  • contribute to KPI 2: establish at least 2 new bio-based value chains;
  • contribute to KPI 6: create at least 2 new demonstrated consumer products based on bio-based proteins for food and feed applications that meet market requirements;
  • reduce by at least 5 % the carbon footprint of the considered bio-based operation compared with the existing animal based protein.
Cross-cutting Priorities:

Cross-cutting Key-Enabling Technologies (KETs)



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