Food Heroes Project

Project Overview

The Interreg supported Food Heroes project involved a collaboration between 16 partners from 6 countries across Europe. The function of the project was to examine ways to improve resource efficiency through designing innovative solutions to reduce food waste. This was achieved through involving numerous sectoral stakeholders in a co-creative process to design, test and apply solutions to real life challenges that exist in the food supply chain. The main areas of the food supply chain examined included: seafood, chickens, goats and fruit & vegetables.

Ireland’s focus was on creating value added products from seafood processing by-products and involved two partners: Bord Iascaigh Mhara (BIM – the national agency charged with supporting the development of the Irish seafood industry) and the Clean Technology Centre (CTC – a leading sustainability research organisation based in Munster Technological University, Cork). Through collaborating with the Food Heroes team and sectoral participants from Ireland, the Irish partners developed 3 solutions that contributed to significant reductions in food waste.

In total, the Food Heroes project contributed to the reduction in food waste of at least:

• 4,300 tonnes of waste in vegetable production, 
• 545 tonnes in the seafood sector, 
• 200,000 1 day-old male chickens, 
• and 6,183 Billy goats.

In addition, there were 76 entries for the Food Heroes Awards show in 2019 which showcased the food waste solutions developed across the participating counties. 

While the impacts of these projects will continue to grow in the coming years, one of the lasting impacts of the project will be the changed mindset it fostered around how we view food waste. For Europe to address its commitment to reducing food waste in line with Sustainable Development Goal 12.3, we need to reimagine food processing by-products (formerly known as wastes) and consider them as valuable raw materials to develop co-products.

Read the full report here