Project POMACE is part of the 2016 strategic research agenda of the CLEVER Innovation Cluster, financed under the ROP Piemonte ERDF 2014-2020. The partners involved in the project include: RAMS&E Srl, Environment Park SpA, CCS Aosta Srl, IDEA3 Engineering Srl, in collaboration with UNITO-DBIOs.
POMACE stands for PrOduzione di aliMenti funzionali Additivati con Composti Estratti da sottoprodotti della lavorazione del pomodoro (production of functional foods mixed with compounds extracted from by-products of tomato processing). The project aims at improving the crop species through the use of specific products during the seed’s treatment, enabling an increase in the level of antioxidants inside the plant. It also aims at extracting the nutraceuticals from production waste with innovative processes and without the use of solvents and at developing functional prototypal foods with the extracted and purified substances.
POMACE allows the development of quality crop production and the fine tuning of an innovative process for the extraction and the purification of functional molecules from agro-industrial byproducts. This leads to the formulation of innovative food products, beneficial for customers’ health. In addition to this, POMACE creates an integrated system which combines research, agriculture and industry, as well as vigorously responding to environmental and local economy needs, easily replicable within other districts.
(click to widen Pomace project scheme)
Our role
Environment Park carried out pilot tests concerning pre-treatment operations and the extraction of functional substances from by-products of tomato processing and of Tritordeum processing, which have been provided by Tomato Farm. In order to carry out the pilot tests, Environment Park has made available its infrastructures, in particular its steam explosion equipment for chemical and enzymatic hydrolysis, as well as its knowledge and experience on the possibilities of biocomponents selective extraction.