Identification & Background:
Project name: PulpIng – Development of Pumpkin Pulp Formulation using a Sustainable Integrated Strategy
Project code: PRIMA/0008/2019
Main objective: Stimulate and improve the sustainable valorisation of pumpkin in African and European countries in an integrative and waste-free manner
Region of intervention: Mediterranean
Beneficiary entities: Polytechnic Institute of Bragança, IPB
MORE – Laboratório Colaborativo Montanhas de Investigação, Associação
Polytchnic Institute of Bragança , IPB
Decorgel – Produtos Alimentares S.A.
University of Thessaly
Greek Fresh Vegetables IKE
Centre de Biotechnologie de Borj Cédria
Leibniz Institute for Agricultural Engineering and Bioeconomy
Centre de Recherche Scientifique & Technique en Analyses Physico-Chimiques
Benha University
Approval date: 18/12/2019
Start date: 01/09/2020
Conclusion date: 31/08/2024
Total elegible investment: € 1 206 438,04
Call: SECTION 2: Call-2019 – Partnership for Research and Innovation in the Mediterranean Area
Coordinating Country: Portugal
Participating countries: Algeria, Germany, Egypt, Greece, Portugal, Tunisia
0bjectives
- Improve cultivation and integrated farming techniques based on innovative processes to enhance the productivity and the chemical/nutritional profile of pumpkin;
- Develop innovative, sustainable and industrially feasible methods to extract high added-value ingredients with effective preserving capacity;
- Identify and isolate natural preservatives with excellent antioxidant and antimicrobial capacity from pumpkin by-products;
- Implement sustainable and easy-to-perform techniques to obtain bio-based preservatives, suitable to be used in industrial scale-up processes;
- Develop a novel pumpkin fruit pulp formulation functionalised with the isolated natural preservatives;
- Develop/optimise non-thermal processing methods based on innovative technologies, which ensure food quality and safety;
- Carry out an optimised approach to enhance the shelf-life of pumpkin fruit pulp formulation;
- Optimise waste/wastewater management and perform a life-cycle assessment to ensure the environmental feasibility of the operations involved in this proposal;
- Promote dissemination and exploitation of the results generated in this proposal to impact both the scientific community and the economy of the participating countries.
Activities
WP1 – Defining agronomic conditions for pumpkin production.
WP2 – Sustainable recovery of compounds with preserving capacity from pumpkin by-products.
WP3 – Refinement and stabilization of the identified preserving compounds.
WP4 – Pumpkin fruit pulp formulation.
WP5 – Preservation studies and quality assessment during shelf-life.
WP6 – Waste and wastewater management and life-cycle assessment.
WP7 – Management and dissemination of results.
CoLAB MORE leads Activity 6, related to Life Cycle Assessment and participates in the remaining activities of the project, namely in terms of the recovery of pumpkin by-products (Activity 2), extraction of compounds with a preservative capacity (Activity 3), as well as quality and shelf life assessment studies (Activity 5).
Expected results
- Improve pumpkin production and productivity rate
- Novel and sustainable natural preservatives from pumpkin by-products
- Production of novel pumpkin pulp formulation
- Preservative capacity and long-term stability
