Newsletter December 2018

BioBoost welcomes three new partners

The Monitoring Committee of the Interreg 2 Seas Programme has approved a project modification in the beginning of September 2018. Two companies Renewi and Greenpack left the project, because of changed strategies and market circumstances and three other companies joined: Tomabel, Comgoed Biomass and Sustainable Protein.

Jeroen Straver from lead partner Municipality of Westland is pleased that the project managed to find these three new partners: “It is not easy to find new partners at such short time. The three new partners fit into the project very well and I think with their participation the project is even becoming stronger. It’s important that the business community is involved to have an impact. There are a lot of opportunities to make new business out of horticultural ‘waste’ and plant compounds, but it are the companies who have to do it!”

Update: T-shirt of Tomato stems?

BioBoost contributes to research possibilities

Beginning of November the project 'Textile of tomatoes' officially started which is co-financed from the project BioBoost. The first stage is to find out the most promising technique to so-called filament from the horticultural residues. There are two possibilities. The first possibility is to convert the residual streams to Viscose; a technique that especially in the past, received less positive attention due to the use of chemicals. Nowadays there are better and cleaner technologies available.

Agri-Tech week seminar: Soil Health and Circular Economy: A Sustainable Future for Agriculture

At partner in the BioBoost project NIAB in Cambridge UK the yearly Agri-Tech week took place from 5-9 November with on 9 November the seminar “Soil Health and Circular Economy: A Sustainable Future for Agriculture”. Different methods of assessing, improving and maintaining soil health were discussed at this event. The event aimed at industry research and growers in horticulture and agriculture.

Successful speed date insect stakeholders at Inagro for BioBoost

On Tuesday afternoon 9 October twenty insect stakeholders participated in a speed date. This was organized within the framework of the project BioBoost.

Insects stakeholders are often looking for a specific link in the chain to build a sustainable business. Therefore Inagro brought stakeholders from various sectors (cultivation, infrastructure, feed, automation, producers of finished goods ...) together.

BioBoost present at INSECTA 2018

The 4th International INSECTA 2018 Conference took place in Gießen Germany on September 5-7, 2018. About 250 participants from 32 different countries were present for this Congress with topics such as breeding, legislation and processing of insects. Partner Inagro presented their most recent BioBoost research results here related to the influence of a moisture source, temperature and relative humidity (RH) on the growth of the ordinary mealworm.

Innovative veggie burgers from horticultural residuals

Vives successfully with vegetarian burgers without soya and egg

BioBoost promotes utilisation of horticultural residual streams for new products. BioBoost partner Vives therefore is developing new applications including vegetarian burgers.

Recently two burgers were developed who not only taste good, but probably will be brought to market also. For the new burgers Vives studied two residual streams: green beans and spent brewers grains.

BioBoost meets sister projects

On 22 November a special meeting took place in Melle (BE). Participants from five project who deal with residual agricultural streams gathered to share knowledge and information and to discuss how they could cooperate. The projects are co-funded by four different Interreg programmes.

Apart from BioBoost (2 Zeeënprogramma) this concerns the following projects: Food from food (Vlaanderen-Nederland), Food Heroes (Noordwest Europa), SmartBiocontrol/BioProtect (France-Wallonie-Vlaanderen) and Growing a Green Future (Vlaanderen-Nederland).

1 meal worm, 2 meal worms, .... 3,254,982 meal worms

Researcher David Deruytter presented on behalf of BioBoost research results regarding meal worm growing at the European Federation of Animal Science conference (EAAP, 27-31 August 2017). He was awarded with best presentation in his category!

As a farmer it is important to know how many animals you have. This to be able to feed exactly the necessary dose or to assess future income. The number of cows in the meadow is easy to count, for meal worms this is a lot harder.

BioBoost in action at Witlof Biënnale 2018 and Food WasteNet event

On 28 and 29 September the Witlof Biënnale 2018 (Chicory Biennale) took place in Etten-Leur (NL) to discuss the developments in the chicory sector in Western Europe.

The British FoodWasteNet organisation organised on 12 and 13 November in Nottingham (UK) the ‘Field Waste Valorisation - the next steps?’ event. FoodWasteNet is a network organisation that aims for the valorisation of food waste and by-products. BioBoost partners gave two presentations:

Project partners: