Descripción

Total funding: 3,045,304,53 €. Funding provided by EU Life Programme (60%): 1,827,180,01 € LIFE REFISH consortium joins key international fish and seafood players with the aim of upscaling and demonstrating a biorefinery able to valorise discards and fish and seafood by-products into high value-added products. Through a set of interconnected valorisation processes (e.g., hydrolysis, nanofiltration, vacuum, evaporation), we will obtain high quality and environmentally friendly protein hydrolysates, oils, mineral fraction, collagen hydrolysates, gelatines, fish mince, chitin and chitosan. Thanks to the high value of our products, we will be able to offer fishers a 3-6 times higher price for their discards or by-products than current purchase price for production of fishmeal or oil. This way, we will make LO compliance economically attractive, fostering its adoption, and encourage sustainable management of by-products, in line with the European Green Deal. By 2030, we will minimise by 1.8% discarding in Spain and valorise 1.9% of the total amount of fish and seafood byproducts produced by the Spanish fish and seafood industry. This way, we will reduce these wasteful practices and their detrimental impact on the marine environment (disease proliferation, mortality) and industry sustainability.