NOVAFOODIES M6 Consortium Meeting took place in Genoa last 19^th – 20^th October 2023.

The large NOVAFOODIES project consortium met on 19^th-20^th October in Genoa, at the Galata Museo del Mare, hosted by the University of Genoa.

NOVAFOODIES, led by IDENER.AI, started last May 2023; its aim is to work on innovative functional food production systems based on more sustainable value chains of marine and freshwater raw materials, using macro/microalgae and different fish species, for conscientious European Consumers and the production of novel & competitive food products.

The two-day event was very useful to meet again in person and to overview the activities that have already started (e.g., working on monitoring systems for traceability), how to fine-tune those that are about to start (e.g., evaluation of environmental & economic gains for profitable IMTA development, ), and to deepen useful topics, such as IP and Gender Integration (through the organization of ad hoc seminars).

The meeting, which took place in a spacious room of the prestigious GALATA Sea Museum of Genoa, featured the Project Work Package Leaders who summarized the activities they lead as described in the Grant Agreement through useful PowerPoint Presentations and described the next steps and research work. At the end of each WP, the dialogue with the other project partners was useful to deepen interesting insights.

On the second and last day of work, two seminars were organized: “Intellectual Property” (led by LCI) and “Gender Approach Integration” (led by ACCION CONTRA EL HAMBRE); in addition, two ad hoc workshops were held to deepen topics of specific Work Packages, that is to say: WP1 and WP2; WP3, WP4, SP5; they were very useful to internally define ongoing issue and fine tune strategic directions.

Stay tuned for more updates!

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NOVAFOODIES Work Packages:

• WP1 – Optimization and pilot scale designs for IMTA (lead by UGE).
• WP2 – Operation & Evaluation of IMTA upscaled designs (lead by TSC).
• WP3 – Finetuning and design of added-value eco-production systems and evaluation of pilot scale operation (lead by AWI).
• WP4 – Verification of existing and new developments for processing algae and fish and extraction of compounds (lead by IDE).
• WP5 – Properties evaluation, formulation, novel functional products, and biosecurity (lead by CTQ).
• WP6 – IT Tools development and monitoring for traceability and enhanced trust (lead by ITE).
• WP7 – Value chain sustainability, socio-laboral inclusion and standardization (lead by HOL).
• WP 8 – Dissemination, exploitation, clustering & engagement (lead by LCI).
• WP 9 – Project Management (lead by IDE).