01 Sep Contactica coordinates project EcoPROLIVE approved by H2020

European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme has approved the project EcoPROLIVE in which Contactica is Coordinator. This is an initiative that brings together 9 entities of 4 European countries in the purpose of developing an innovative processing for the full exploitation of high valuable constituents in the olive into novel products that are healthy and greener.

This project will have a duration of two years. The proposed innovative process is very different from the current approaches of olive oil industrial production, as well as from the waste revalorization alternatives. It follows a “zero waste” approach where all resulting products have commercial value.

EcoPROLIVE main goals are: demonstration of the technical and economic feasibility of the processing and its environmental study; ensuring the market uptake of the technology and novel products, fully characterized (nutritional, functional, toxicological) to avoid market barriers; design of the optimal process and scale-up from lab/pilot plant to preindustrial application; validation at an operational environment; monetizing the technology and developed process (patents) into scalable markets and; replication in different scales and countries, starting with the main olive oil producers represented in the consortium (Spain, Italy, Portugal and Greece).

The consortium composed by: Contactica S.L. (Project Coordinator), Isanatur Spain S.L., Ingeniería para el Desarrollo Tecnológico S.L., Universidad de Zaragoza, Universidad Autonoma de Madrid (Spain), Prometeo SRL, Alma Mater Studiorum-Universita di Bologna (Italy), CVR – Centro para a Valorização de Residuos (Portugal) and Evangelos Mihopoulos & SIA O.E. (Greece).

EcoPROLIVE will have a total eligible cost of 2.417.712,00€, and will receive funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement Nº 635597, of about 1.999.500,00€.

The kick-off meeting will happen in Spain, at Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, between 24th and 25th of September.