Our goals and results.
Trotec's LIFE F3 Project
Expansion.
Trotec wants to expand the types of former foodstuff that can be packed and, more importantly, unpacked. These new streams of products need to be processed on an industrial scale with a bigger focus on the following former foodstuff:
Raise Awareness.
Trotec's LIFE F3 project aims to raise awareness in the food/feed/packaging industries and to policy makers on the available options to process food waste into higher added value products.
Knowledge exchange.
Exchange knowledge with other stakeholders of other potential end applications for our feed blend.
Goals by numbers.
RESULTS
|
|
OBJECTIVES |
ACHIEVED RESULTS |
|
Tons less CO2 emitted |
25 200 |
32 100 |
|
Tons extra capacity |
50 000 |
53 000 |
|
Tons more of packaging recycled |
1 603 |
3 380 |
|
Tons of former foodstuffs processed |
50 000 |
56 700 |
|
Cubic meters less water consumption |
65 757 315 |
93 200 000 |
|
Additional hectares of fertile land freed |
6 667 |
9 450 |
Environmental Benefits
Food waste represents not only the loss of edible goods but also the wastage of water, land, energy, and other natural resources used in food production. Today, food manufacturers are becoming increasingly conscious of their ecological impact. Sustainable solutions to feed the growing global population and the animals while minimizing environmental impacts will play an even more crucial role in the future.
During the LIFE F3-project, significant efforts were made to engage the food and retail sectors in the revalorization of former foodstuff into high-quality animal feed.
- The number of suppliers increased from 161 kilotonnes per year to 214 kilotonnes in 2023, thanks to collaborations with over 450 suppliers, including major retail players like Lidl, Aldi, Auchan, and Colruyt.
- These partnerships have strengthened the circular economy model by preventing food waste and transforming it into a valuable resource and give them solutions and new ideas to increase their ecological footprint.
The increasing prevalence of packaged food contributes to the growing environmental burden of plastic waste. Trotec introduced a high-throughput sorting technique for packed food waste, ensuring:
- Effective separation of food and packaging waste.
- Prevention of contaminants in feed products (and subsequently in the human food chain).
- Maintenance of high safety and quality standards.
Sustainable livestock production is essential to mitigate negative impacts on soil, water, air, and climate. Through LIFE F3, Trotec has actively raised awareness (to different stakeholders) of the importance of reducing food waste and adopting circular economy principles (and choosing this process instead of methanisation):
- Exhibitions: participated with a booth at major industry events, such as SPACE and Sommet de l’Élevage
- Educational outreach: developed a mobile teaching container to promote the project and set new collaborations with several education institutes
- Contacts with different policymakers such as Ursula von der Leyen, Marc Fesnau, the French Minister of Agriculture and Alexander De Croo, Prime Minister of Belgium
- Industry Collaboration: took part in roundtables, including EFFPA discussions, active member of Flanders’ Food
- Publications: published several articles about the results and the impact
A wastage of food implicates a wastage of the water, land, energy and other natural resources used to produce the food. Today, food manufacturers are becoming more and more conscious about the value of circular ingredients and are developing new food and feed innovations with this streams. Also very positive: The LIFE F3 project has directly contributed to Trotec’s commercial success. We have achieved a sales increase across European markets (existing and new), including Belgium, France, the Netherlands, Denmark, Italy, and Switzerland. This leads to new investments in R&D to process more circular ingredients.
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Trotec Industry 4.0 IT monitoring system
Introduction
The Trotec Industry 4.0 IT monitoring system provide a robust framework for enhancing food recuperation efforts. By improving traceability, optimizing logistics, enabling predictive analytics, and fostering better collaboration, these technologies ensure that former foodstuff is efficiently and safely monitored.
Target
The IT monitoring system will be automated as much as possible. By integrating sensors as cameras, probes weighing system in the collection system, the IT system will collect a portfolio of data reports which will enable our logistic department to optimize the planning of the trucks.
Actual situation
Trotec is actually ready to roll out the Industry 4.0 IT platform.
Detailed analysis, implementation & programming, installation, configuration and parameterization and finally the training and start-up guidance of the package were fully implemented.
Today, Trotec has the technology in house to optimize the transport for the collection of former foodstuff. The IT platform is live with certain key suppliers. By raising awareness and targeted action towards those suppliers, the first results show a significantly improved level of container filling of 14% on average. By further rollout of the Industry 4.0 IT monitoring system (including sensor application to all containers) and optimizing collection routes, we expect to reduce the transport kilometers and associated footprint with at least 20% by the end of 2025.