Sustainability and product innovation are among the most important challenges of the modern era and the pillars of economic growth and prosperity for every Regional Entity. However, these concepts are particularly important when referring to affected regions, such as the Thessaly Region, a region that in recent years has been tested by natural phenomena (floods) and the Economic Crisis like no other. Sustainability, through the rational exploitation and management of agro-food waste, is a key component for the sustainable economic development of any social ecosystem and is a top priority, according to the «Strategic Plan for Smart Specialization 2021-2027» of the Region, which is called upon to find its place in an ever-changing economic environment.
One of the most emblematic crops of the Thessaly Region, which however is accompanied by large quantities of by-products and waste, is the cultivation of olives. Although olive cultivation largely supports the economy of the regions of the Region, its environmental footprint is quite large, mainly due to the huge quantities of waste that arise as a result of harvesting the fruit and producing olive oil. The leaves and branches that arise during the olive pruning period, the oil kernel of the two-phase olive presses, and the aqueous residue of the two-phase olive presses are some of the by-products of Olea europaea, which to date have not been further utilized and are discarded into the environment as waste. However, despite their polluting load, these by-products are also a valuable source of bioactive components (plant antioxidants) which can be relatively easily recovered, isolated, and subsequently used as raw materials for the enrichment of new products. This Research Proposal describes a sustainable model of integrated management of the by-products of oil cultivation/oil extraction, applying «green» cutting-edge technologies, and addresses the recovery of biologically active substances from them and their conversion into commercially viable, high-value-added raw materials for the animal feed industry, while the processed biomass is reused as organic fertilizer in the field using methodologies with a zero environmental footprint.
In parallel, the commercial exploitation of the derived natural products (bioactive extracts) as a result of the utilization of olive by-products can be carried out in various ways. Adding them to animal feed as a supplement, taking advantage of their bioactive content, constitutes a profitable management and utilization model. Today, the market is flooded with imported animal feeds of questionable quality, in many cases, and at a significant cost to the national economy. Moreover, the quality of animal feeds is directly linked to the health and productivity of animals, as well as to the quality of their produced products (meat, milk, etc.).
The utilization of the by-products of olive cultivation/oil extraction in the Thessaly Region, in accordance with the principles of the circular economy, through the production of soil-improving and bioactive extracts, and the subsequent integration of the resulting natural products into animal feed for the nutrition of dairy-producing cattle and the improvement of the quality of the produced milk, constitutes the central idea of this research Proposal.
The project «GREENMILK» is a partnership (1) between the Research Organization «EKPA/FARM» with years of experience in the field of natural products, and (2) Greek companies «ASPILEOU» and «PITSIKALAS» with strong commercial activity in the fields of olive cultivation/oil extraction and livestock farming, respectively.