The third FoodPackLab Innovation Workshop took place in Paris in the mid of October, as part of the Hub Day Tech4Food, co-organized by the consortium member Systematic Paris-Region and the food innovation cluster Vitagora. The third and final international event was a full success, bringing together over 80 participants from France, Belgium, Italy and Spain, representing all three targeted sectors (photonics, packaging and food).
FoodPackLab, whose consortium is led by secpho, is funded by the European Union’s COSME Programme (2014-2020). It promotes the collaboration between food processing, packaging and photonics innovation clusters in the EU in order to identify and develop solutions to problems arising during the food processing and packaging stage that limit the food shelf life before being thrown out.
This international event was a result of inter-cluster collaboration between the consortium member Systematic and the French food innovation cluster Vitagora. For more than a decade, Vitagora has been turning food and agri-business innovation ideas into real world business success stories, from field to plate. Business/R&D collaborations, knowledge mapping and expert search, cluster insights sharing – Vitagora gets SMEs to the heart of Europe’s food innovation potential. In addition, the consortium engaged the collaborating clusters CNR-IFAC from Italy and Pack4Food from Belgium as well as several French food clusters in order to attract more companies for all three FPL sectors and to establish collaborations with other EU clusters.
The Tech4Food Event, dedicated to the digital transformation of the agriculture and agri-food sector, consisted of 2 main parts: a plenary session with presentations from different companies and 2 FoodPackLab innovation workshops in parallel. The plenary session was divided in 3 technological topics: Precision Farming/Performance & Production, Traceability, Safety & Quality and Packaging & Product data. The main goal of the 2 FoodPackLab innovation workshops was to foster cross-sectorial collaboration between photonics, packaging and food entities. In each workshop one challenge from the food sector was presented, followed by photonics and/or packaging solutions and the debate was moderated by the Systematic and Vitagora teams aiming to initiate collaborative innovation project. Those challenges included:
- The challenges for urban farming (proposed by Tower Farm)
- Recyclability – greenwashing vs. reduced carbon footprints
The event showed the importance of involving the participants to share their knowledge with the others in order to make connections for business opportunities and potential projects in the future. A concrete example is the participation of an SME (AOTECH) and R&D Centre (ICFO) from Spain, who are members of secpho, and took the opportunity to join this third event, starting to actively collaborate. Thanks to the event they were able to make valuable business contacts, resulting in business opportunities or potential projects.
Moreover, a collaboration with other projects is valuable as a way of ensuring the diversity of the attending group and making the agenda more attractive for participants. Therefore the C-Voucher project presented its complementary offers for participants (circular economy acceleration programme with open calls for circular support to SMEs).
Apart from this, the day was the ideal opportunity to meet with the collaborating clusters CNR-IFAC and Pack4Food as well as the food innovation cluster Vitagora, in order to strengthen the new collaborations, to establish better connections and concretize our common internationalization strategy.
If you missed the event, check out the summarizing video here and see most of the speaker’s presentations below:
Introduction: Photonics, an enabler for precision agriculture | Jacques Cochard, Tematys
Adapting sunlight spectrum to enhance protected crops | Frederic Peilleron, Cascade
Challenge presentation “The challenges for urban farming” | Proposed by Tower Farm
Field to Fork- communicating to the consumer | James Livingston Wallace, Quinola Mothergrain
BlockChain and IA for Food | Jean-Michel Thomas, Connecting Food
How would Blockchain improve grain supply chain from farm to fork? | Philippe Lehrmann, Ositrade
Challenges of end-to-end traceability : a perspective on how to combine existing and emerging digital technologies | Matthieu Hug, Tilkal
Solutions based on NIR spectroscopy for dairy industry | Iker Garcia, AOTECH
TIPA Compostable Packaging : what if your flexible packaging could break down just like organic waste? | Jean-Pierre Rakoutz, TIPA
FoodPackLab Project Introduction | Sabine Runge, secpho
Managing Innovation In Tuscany – The Photonics Perspective | Dott.ssa Francesca Sanfilippo, IBE –CNR & Dott. Giovanni Scire’, IFAC -CNR
Challenge “The challenges for urban farming” | proposed by Tower Farm
Challenge “Recyclability – greenwashing Vs reduced carbon footprints” | proposed by Quinola Mothergrain