The project
The SOULFOOD project will test innovative digital solutions to help reduce food loss, contributing to a more sustainable agri-food sector, and improving the efficiency of food distribution/donation initiatives for vulnerable groups implemented by NGOs and local governments.
SOULFOOD has a totalbudget of 801,739.88 euros, with 90% co-financing by the European Social Fund Plus.
Specific objectives
- Reduce food loss, contributing to a more sustainable agri-food sector, and improve the efficiency of food distribution/donation initiatives for vulnerable groups implemented by NGOs and local governments.
- Increase the digitization of the main agents of the value chain (producers and social initiatives).
- Improve the networks between local agri-food producers and the social initiatives of food distribution in the participating communities, to promote new collaborations for the reuse of lost food for social purposes.
- Raise awareness of the problem of food loss among the main actors in the value chain and the public.
Work packages
1. Management and coordination
This work package aims to ensure the performance of technical management, the achievement of project results through administrative coordination, as well as providing timely and efficient organizational and financial coordination in compliance with teh Grant Agreement. It will ensure not only the appropriate measures of information and control, but also the coordination of relations outside the project, seeking synergies and strategic partnerships with other existing key networks.
Work package coordinated by Diputació de Tarragona.
2. Identification and testing of digital solutions for sustainable agri-food production
It will identify the needs of local producers regarding food loss and what a possible digital tool would look like to help them manage it. It wants to increase the digitization of the main agents of the value chain (producers and social initiatives).
You will select a digital tool and test it among some producers.
Work package coordinated by the South Catalonia TIC Cluster.
3. Identification of solutions to improve social initiatives of food distribution
Improve networks between local agri-food producers and social initiatives of food distribution in the participating communities, to promote new collaborations for the reuse of lost food for social purposes.
It will identify good practices to connect food producers and social initiatives, it will also organize mutual learning events between these two groups. It will develop and test a digital tool that connects producers and social initiatives.
Work package coordinated by the Espigoladors Foundation.
4. Communication
Increase awareness of the problem of food loss among the main actors in the value chain and the general public.General communication and dissemination activities. Organisation of the final event.
Work package coordinated by Diputació de Tarragona.
Els socis
Diputació de Tarragona
The Diputació de Tarragona is a supra-municipal organization that works to improve of the quality of life of the people, the municipalities and the counties of Camp de Tarragona, the Terres de l'Ebre and the Baix Penedès. It provides services, provides technical and legal coverage and delivers state funds for infrastructure, culture or education to the municipalities of the demarcation.
It coordinates the SOULFOOD project and leads its communication activities.
Centre Social del Roser - Ajuntament de Reus
The El Roser Social Center is an integrative, inclusive and innovative municipal facility of the Reus City Council.
It is the culmination of a landmark project that structures a care and empowerment plan for people in vulnerable situations, designed and developed by the Social Welfare Department of Reus City Council, which currently manages it. For all this, it is the most important challenge in the social field that has been made in Reus in the last decades.
REDESSA - Ajuntament de Reus
It is a municipal company of Reus City Council that works alongside companies, entrepreneurs, startups and spinoffs, to help them grow their projects. He coordinates the recently created Foodtech & Nutrition Hub, which brings together the ICT sector with the agri-food sector.
Clúster Catalunya TIC Sud
Founded in 2014, it is the business association promoted by the public sector and led by the private sector that brings together the main technological companies in the territory. The TIC Sud aims to promote and contribute to competitiveness in the value chain of the Information and Communication Technologies sector in Camp de Tarragona and the Terres del Ebre. In addition, it acts as a pole of attraction for talent and international projects to position the territory as the technological hub of reference in southern Europe.
Fundació Espigoladors
The Espigoladors foundation is a non-profit organization. Since 2014 they have been working to prevent food loss and food waste. With a transformative, inclusive, participatory and sustainable approach, they seek to guarantee the right to healthy and sustainable food for everyone. Gleaning is their activity, which helps them combat food loss and is where their name comes from.
Through picking, the volunteers of Espigoladors recover surplus fruits and vegetables directly from the fields to distribute them among social entities and food banks that work to guarantee access to sustainable food for people in vulnerable situations.
Lithuania Innovation Center
Since 1996, this innovation center, specialized in the development and implementation of digital technologies in the industrial, agri-food and energy sectors, has been developing its activity. It offers innovation support services and integrates Lithuanian innovation support entities into international value chains.
AgriFood Lithuania
AgriFood Lithuania is a digital innovation hub and cluster that brings together the main research agents, companies and the public for the common research of digital transformations in agriculture, food and associated sectors. It links stakeholders with international and cross-sectoral initiatives to provide comprehensive support in the development and deployment of agri-food innovations. The innovative agri-food ecosystem it has created involves all actors in the food value chain, from primary producers to consumers. The organization promotes more than 300 events annually and collaborates in at least 50 initiatives. It offers services to public and private actors, such as collaborations to build stakeholder ecosystems, knowledge transfer, use case validations or innovation, and project co-creation.
Boroume
Boroume is a Greek non-profit organization founded with the aim of reducing food waste and increasing donations to the country, through food savings programs that cover every stage of the value chain and various educational and increase programs the awareness
Boroume has also created and coordinated Greece's national voluntary agreement on food waste reduction (Alliance for the Reduction of Food Waste), as well as one of the first food saving certifications called "No Food Waste".
Since their beginnings in 2012, they have saved and offered 70 million portions of food to 650 charity initiatives throughout Greece. It has been recognized with the European Citizen Award 2017 by the European Parliament and is an active member of the European platform on food loss and food waste since its creation in 2016.
