Seafood delicacies, such as shellfish and crustaceans, are marine food resources with large commercial impact. However, typically only a small part of these animals is consumed, as 65% to 85% of the commercial weight of gastropods and bivalves and 20% to 40% of crustaceans are shell, which become waste after consuming the sea food. This generates a lot of food related waste that ends up in landfills. There are various early commercial services that aim to exploit the properties and possible uses of this by-product in different industry sectors (e.g., agricultural, pharmaceutical, biomedical industries), allowing this waste to be used instead of being discarded. However, no streamlined solution exists yet. The dimension of the problem is clear: We estimate that 500 tonnes of waste are generated per year by limpet consumption in all Atlantic Islands alone and between 50 to 200 times more with bivalves shell waste.
The companies INOVA DE and Go Limpets have been developing an agro-food traceability solution that aims to allow the companies that are part of the agro-food industry supply chain (fishers/harvesters, distribution, restaurants, food factories, and now waste recyclers) to exchange information about their shipments and current state. We propose to expand this platform to support industries with high-value products in obtaining existing agro-food waste in a much more efficient manner and turning waste into a resource. The prototype developed by the consortium uses IoT sensors, web servers, and software connected to the organisations across the entire agro-food supply chain to enable the exchange of information and management of food. This prototype has already been validated in a pilot that run during the 2019-2020 period at Madeira Island.
The objective of the current SWAM project is to follow up on the results of the previous pilot by 1) validating the prototype to upgrade it to a minimum viable product (MVP) for commercial deployment, 2) developing a waste management traceability (delivery of live seafood, recovery of waste, control over the preparation and extraction of minerals), and 3) preparing its deployment by developing a business plan that builds on the partners’ capabilities and characteristics of the market.
Supported by Digicirc – grant number DIGICIRC_OC1_2020/17
