The SOULFOOD project, promoted by the Provincial Council of Tarragona and whose aim is to mitigate food waste at source, is taking its first steps. This January, technicians and specialists from the REDESSA Foodtech & Nutrition Hub, the Reus City Council, the Espigoladors Foundation and the TIC Catalunya Sud Cluster, with the collaboration of the Provincial Government of Tarragona, met at the facilities FiraReus meetings with local agricultural producers with the aim of knowing in detail how they manage the surplus of their harvests (that is, the products that remain in the field, both for harvesting and those that cannot be distributed for various reasons ) and analyze how a digital solution can be offered to help minimize the number of products that are lost.
During the session, the local producers detailed the procedure they use to manage the part of the harvest that remains in the field, and shared the concerns that the demands of the market generate for them. They also shared their collaboration with social organizations in order to take advantage of these surpluses and avoid food waste.
The conclusions of this work session will be added to those extracted from the various interviews planned with other local producers, as well as those obtained by the Lithuanian and Romanian partners , who will also carry out similar work sessions and interviews in their countries. All this information will be used to develop an application or technological tool that serves to connect food surpluses at source with local social initiatives and thus contribute to the fight against food waste
These actions are part of work package 2 of the SOULFOOD project, which focuses on the identification and testing of digital solutions for sustainable agricultural and food production.
SOULFOOD, a project with soul
SOULFOOD is a project that for two years will search for formulas based on technological innovation to make the surpluses of agricultural productions reach social initiatives. The project has a global budget of 801,739.88 euros, 90% of which is financed by the European Social Fund Plus and has the participation, in addition to the Provincial Council of Tarragona, the City Council of Reus, REDESSA with the Hub Foodtech & Nutrition, the Southern Catalonia TIC Cluster and the Espigoladors Foundation. It also has four European partners, leaders in the agri-food and social innovation sectors: the Lithuanian Innovation Center (Lithuania), the Digital Innovation Hub Agri-Food (Lithuania), the City Council of Roman (Romania) and the NGO Boroume – Saving food saving lives (Greece).
SOULFOOD is organized into four work packages: management and coordination, identification and testing of digital solutions for sustainable agricultural and food production, identification of solutions to improve social food distribution initiatives and communication. Each of these work packages has associated different activities, led by one of the partners and participated by different partners each. In this way, the aim is to learn about different ways of working and learn from good international practices, in order to be able to try to apply them to the reality of each of the different participating territories.