Dr. Helena McMahon:

On the issue of addressing on-farm waste, we are here to talk about the circular bioeconomy and how that integrates with addressing food waste and circular economy. When we look at farms going from farm to fork and then to the consumer and end of life, we can see there are food losses along the value chain. As one goes along the value chain, there are opportunities for valorisation and the creation of new products. It is not just the finished food product that provides an opportunity. For example, we can have food processing waste streams, such as apple pomace, or we may have side-streams on the farm that are coming from harvesting. All of those are a very valuable input that can go to bio-refinery facilities for the creation of new products and ingredients. One could have the production of functional ingredients, such as biowaste polymers that could be used in the production of plastics, or the production of new feed ingredients. This means looking at food wastes, some of which are unavoidable, but also taking that and converting it into new products that are very favourable in terms of their environmental performance and also issues, opportunities and KPIs around decarbonising the agrifood system. A more holistic view of the food system is required in terms of the opportunities for valorising waste and introducing opportunities for decarbonisation.

The final step in that value chain is always the creation of energy from the residues that are left, where possible. That is considered in a way to be the lowest common denominator in the process, but it also provides benefits for the energy systems through the production of renewable energy. That is where we would see some of the key opportunities in terms of legislation.

I am glad someone mentioned industry, as opposed to just primary producers. There is a huge amount of innovation required in policy. We have a project, EnableBIO, funded by the EPA. It is specifically funded to look at the policy innovations that are required for valorising agrifood waste. That project just kicked off in February and we have two years to work on it. The Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications is represented on our committee, which will meet next week. We are looking at issues such as the animal byproducts regulations, for example. It is about how we can take these side-products that would not be considered suitable for the food chain, valorise them and add value. There is a lot of work that needs to be done in that particular area.

When we look at companies that are creating new and novel ingredients, Biorefinery Glas is creating fructooligosaccharides, which are prebiotics and really valuable products that can be bought into animal feed. However, we would also like to bring them into food and the human food chain. There are a lot of regulatory hurdles that have to be overcome when bringing new and novel ingredients to the market. This is very expensive for companies that are highly innovative but have these market-related barriers to bringing products onto the market.

They would be some of the barriers we would take.