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Ares(2021)5195987 - 20/08/2021

Research and Innovation Action

Call identifier: H2020-BBI-JTI-2017

Topic: BBI.2017.R6

Grant Agreement Number: 792261

Project acronym:

Project title: Development of new Competitive and Sustainable Bio-Based

Deliverable D7.5 – Report on events

Start Date of Project: 01.06.2018

Duration of Project: 39 Months

Delivery Date: Month 39

Responsible for this Deliverable: TRITECC

Dissemination Level: PU – Public

TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. INTRODUCTION..................................................................................................................................................... 4
2. NEWPACK DISSEMINATION EVENTS ..................................................................................................................... 5
2.1 On-site workshop Piacenza .......................................................................................................................... 5
2.2 Virtual International Event ........................................................................................................................... 6
2.3 NEWPACK Final Conference ......................................................................................................................... 9
2.4 Other events ...............................................................................................................................................11
2.5 Event kit ......................................................................................................................................................12

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 Deliverable D7.5 – Report on events

LIST OF FIGURES

Fig. 2.1 NEWPACK 1st Workshop agenda 5

Fig. 2.2 NEWPACK International Virtual Event Speakers 6

Fig. 2.3 NEWPACK International Virtual Event Screenshot presentations 8

Fig. 2.4 NEWPACK Final Conference Agenda and Speakers 9

Fig. 2.5 NEWPACK Roundtable – participating projects 10

Fig. 2.6 NEWPACK event kit 12

Fig. 2.7 NEWPACK social media post examples 12

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 Deliverable D7.5 – Report on events

1. INTRODUCTION

As fossil resources are becoming more and more expensive due to their limited amount, NEWPACK
proposes bio-plastics based on renewable resources such as by-products produced in the course of
annual industrial food crops or other agro-food waste; thus, are expected to compete in terms of
expenses. Since all the bio-plastic films produced by NEWPACK will be biodegradable or compostable
cost-efficient recycling will result in reduced waste management.

The NEWPACK project provides different solutions for the food packaging industry based on sustainable
and circular technology. These solutions will include packaging film material based on biodegradable
materials (PHB-PLA) with improved mechanical properties (owing to the addition of nanocellulose or
nanochitin and the application of active coating). Among the limits that can be ascribed to all existing
solutions in sustainable food packages, one is the lack of a wide gas permeability range similar to the
one existing for conventional plastic packaging. In fact, nowadays, there is no available reliable solution
for high barrier film, especially in high humidity conditions, and this penalizes all the food packaging
applications in which modified atmosphere is necessary (and widely diffused) as food preservation system.
From this point of view, it is particularly interesting to explore novel materials and their various blends
(such as PLA-PHB) to achieve different gas transmission behaviours.

The film developed during NEWPACK project, besides having all the required properties to be food
approved and efficient for the necessary shelf-life, will, like all the used compounds, be also biodegradable
and compostable so to really enter into a circular economy. This will be really well appreciated by the
consumer and could facilitate the introduction of these new products on the market.

The aim of deliverable D7.5 is the presentation of all dissemination events organised by the consortium to
facilitate promotion of Newpack Project, disseminate the projects objectives, raise awareness and increase
impact on key stakeholders.

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 Deliverable D7.5 – Report on events

2. NEWPACK DISSEMINATION EVENTS

Project events, such as workshops, seminars or webinars, are an important promotional tool for the later
implementation of the NEWPACK approach in the bioeconomy. Events help in spreading the project
outputs to the envisaged target audiences, facilitate valuable feedback from the participating stakeholders
as well as provide ground for discusion and brain-storming.

Therefore, NEWPACK project partners actively planned and organised several events, directed towards
a large group of audience with the goal to raise awareness and seek involvement of stakeholders:
- On-site workshop entitled “Development of innovative bioplastics for the food sector”, 19 October
2019, Piacenza, Italy
- A Virtual International Event composed of 2 webinar sessions, on the 25th and 27th of May 2021
- A final conference together with a virtual Rountable on the 30th of July 2021

Apart from the above events organised by the consortium, the partners identified and engaged in various
events where they disseminated Project work and results.

2.1 On-site workshop Piacenza

The first event organised by the NewPack consortium, Development of innovative bioplastics for the food
sector workshop, took place on the 19th of November 2019 at Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore,
Piacenza, Italy. The workshop included a mix of presentations by project partners and external speakers
from both academia and industry.

Fig. 2.1 NewPack 1st Workshop Agenda

All presentations from the workshop are available for download, in pdf format, from the project website,
under Workshop presentations: http://www.newpack-h2020.eu/dissemination.html

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2.2 Virtual International Event

Natural polymers have been around and used for thousands of years, which then have been gradually
replaced mostly by fully synthetic plastics since the mid of 19th century. With the continuously evolving
science and technology of polymers a number of different engineered plastics have been developed and
produced in massive quantities reaching nearly 370 million tons in 2019
(https://www.statista.com/statistics/282732/global-production-of-plastics-since-1950/). As polymers offer
cheap, lightweight and durable alternatives to other common materials such as glass, metals, wood and
even paper, we use those practically everywhere in our life, albeit there is another side of the coin.
Common plastics are made from fossils, typically oil or natural gas, and are often difficult to recycle or
properly dispose. In the best-case scenario, items made of these plastics are reused a few times, maybe
recycled or simply incinerated by the end of their life-cycle, but most of them ends up in land-fills of junk-
yards or waits for thousands of years of very slow decomposition somewhere else in our nature making
lots of damage in its flora and fauna. To solve the aforementioned environmental problems, one utopian
route would be not using plastics. Another, more realistic approach is to provide valid fully sustainable
alternatives that are made from renewable materials, and once reaching their end of life are easy to be
recycled/valorized or can biodegrade without leaving even their traces behind. This is a complex task to
be solved, and requires joint efforts of stakeholders to find and place each puzzle piece into the right place.
Having NewPack participating in the game with upscaled production of bioplastics made from renewable
resources for food packaging is an important step forward in achieving a greener future, and thus we are
glad to discuss the present and future of the field together in our webinars.

The focus of the 2 webinar sessions was on bio-based materials, validations and applications with the aim
of sharing the experience gained in the project on production, processing and techno-economical feasibility
of the bio-based materials. In addition, our guest speakers shared their experience on the various
applications of bio-based materials.

Fig. 2.2 NewPack International Virtual Event Speakers

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 Deliverable D7.5 – Report on events

Session 1 - Development of sustainable packaging, 25th May 2021, 14-16 CEST

14:00 Development of new Bio-Based blends – from laboratory to pilot scale, Luana Montalbano, Proplast

Within Newpack project, blending of PLA and experimentally produced PHB was performed, starting from a lab scale
to a pilot scale equipment, in order to produce innovative PLA/PHB blends for food packaging applications. Several
biopolymeric formulations were prepared with and without the incorporation of natural extracts and nanoadditives (i.e
cellulose and chitin nanowhiskers). Compositions of the blends were optimized in order to reach the best balance
between material properties and their processability. In this way, a new sustainable value chain was generated starting
from the exploitation of agro-food wastes for the production of PHB up to the designing and validating steps for a pilot
scale process.

14:30 Film blowing and casting technologies for NEWPACK materials, Vanesa Martinez-Nogues,
Tecnopackaging

TECNOPACKAGING, Spanish SME (Zaragoza), presented their current advances and results on the processing
technologies used during NEWPACK project using PLA-PHB based materials obtained from the project. The talk
summarized improvements and optimization needed in the laboratory systems when using bio-based materials for
the production of film for food packaging applications (fresh vegetables and processed meat).

15:00 Paper based solutions for active and sustainable packaging, Lorenzo Pastrana, International Iberian
Nanotechnology Laboratory (cancelled due to private reasons)

15:30 Cellulose foams for packaging, Åsa Ek, Vice President Emerging Business Biofoams, Stora Enso

The presentation was an opportinuty tol eran about the development of Cellulose foam from start-up to building pilot
facility. At Stora Enso we develop a cellulose foam to be used for cushioning protection in packaging. This novel,
sustainable foam material has been designed to be fully natural and the technology offers a biodegradable alternative
to a wide range of products.

Session 2 - Bio-polymer production, 27th May 2021, 14-16 CEST

14:00 MANDALA project: a sustainable future for multilayer packaging, Marta Redrado Notivoli, Aitiip Centro
Tecnológico

The MANDALA project - a sustainable solution for the plastic packaging sector, focusing on 3 fundamental pillars: eco-
design, adhesives with double functionality and end of life, with the aim of finding a sustainable and effective solution
for multilayer packaging in the medium term, insofar as recycling the conventional materials as well as the use of
biopolymers.

14:30 Production of biopolymer and biobased additives for food packaging, Rakesh Nair, BioBase Europe
Pilot Plant

The global focus is gradually turning away from fossil-based polymers to bio-based polymers and bio-additives for
biomedical and packaging fields due to its biodegradability, environmental friendliness, and ease of production from a
renewable resource. Waste from food industries has great potential as feedstocks for biopolymer production by
extraction or fermentation with or without pre-treatment. One of the main objectives of the New Pack study was to
explore the potential of PHB production from glucose obtained by the pre-treatment of agro-food residues (potato-peel)
and also to extract and produce chitin nanowhiskers and cellulose nanowhiskers from natural sources as bio-based
additives for innovative biopolymer formulations.

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 Deliverable D7.5 – Report on events

15:00 Assessing the techno-economic sustainability of bio-based productions, Andrea Bassani & Gianmaria
Tassinari, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore
During the presentation the techno-economic assessment of a sustainable bio-based productions was detailed. In the
first part, hybrid input-output analysis as a powerful tool for assessing the sustainability benefits of introducing new bio-
based value chains into an economy was presented. The future of impact evaluations relies on coupling big data with
small data at a local level. In particular, coupling conventional process-based data with the strengths of supply-use
matrices provides a complete assessment of the direct and indirect impacts of emerging bio-based industries.
In the second part, the advantages of using a process modelling approach based on both first principles equations and
big data were illustrated. This approach (i.e. digital twin) is a valuable tool both to optimize the process in order to be
economically sustainable and to facilitate the scale up or scale down operations of the plant, reducing in both cases
the number of experimental tests required. Moreover, the developed model can be exploited in the modern
technologies of control of process (e.g. model predictive control).
15:30 From food waste into lactic acid, Rotem Tidhar, Triple W

TripleW has developed a proprietary bioprocess for converting food waste into valuable feedstock for biomaterials
production, bringing to market a sustainable bioeconomy solution. The name TripleW stands for “triple win”: (1)
providing clean biomaterials, (2) putting food waste to work in the circular economy, and (3) offering significant return
on investment. The triple win process replaces food crops with food waste as feedstock, using a novel bacterial
fermentation process to break food down into fermentable substrate for production of lactic acid, the building block for
PLA bioplastics. This innovative solution maximizes food waste value, reduces lactic acid production costs, and
preserves the environment with a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.

The webinars were held online, via MS Teams. Registration was done through the Project website and
the link to enter the virtual webinar session was sent via e-mail the day before the event.

Fig. 2.3 NewPack International Virtual Event Screenshot presentations

The international webinars reached huge interest worldwide. More than 180 stakeholders from more
than 15 countries registered for the event.

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2.3 NEWPACK Final Conference

On the 30th of July 2021 the NewPack consortium organised the final project conference.

Due to the ongoing corona pandemic the format of a virtual conference was chosen. This offered the
opportunity for participation of stakeholders from all over the world thereby widely disseminating and
communicating project results.

Fig. 2.4 NewPack Final Conference Agenda and Speakers

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 Deliverable D7.5 – Report on events

The conference was concluded with a roundtable where several projects were engaged in an
open discussion related to expected projects results, threats and opportunities for market uptake
of (biobased) products.

Fig. 2.5 NewPack Roundtable – participating projects

The final conference reached a quite high interest worldwide, also keeping in mind the timing which was
aligned to summer holiday. More than 65 stakeholders from more than 10 countries registered for the
event.

The NewPack consortium would like to say “Thank you” to all stakeholders for attending the conference
and the roundtable.

The presentations of the project partners will soon be available through the NewPack YouTube channel.

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2.4 Other events

These events have provided additional opportunities for networking and engagement between members
of the NewPack consortium and participating professionals.

Partner Other
Participation Participation proposing & partners
No. Event title (original title) Location
date from date till attending attending
the event the event
Development of innovative bioplastics for the Piacenza,
1 19.11.2019 19.11.2019 UCSC all
food sector Italy
Zaragoza,
2 05.11.2019 07.11.2019 BBEPP II Plastic congress S3
Spain
ECP4 2019 Conference - Research and Alessandria,
3 21.05.2019 21.05.2019 PROPLAST UCSC
Innovation for Plastics in a Circular Economy Italy
ICheaP14: International Congress on Bologna,
4 26.05.2019 29.05.2019 UCSC
Chemical and Process Engineering Italy
GRICU 2019: Il contributo dell’Ingegneria
Chimica Italiana alla sostenibilità globale,
Palermo,
5 30.06.2019 03.07.2019 UCSC Mondello (PA), Italy, Italian congress about
Italy
Chemical Engineering and Global
Environmental Sustainability,
Residual Biomasses for Eco-compatible and
6 12.09.2019 12.09.2019 UCSC Trieste, Italy
Sustainable Food Packaging
ECCE12-ECAB05 12th European Congress
Firenze,
7 15.09.2019 19.09.2019 USCS of Chemical Engineering and 5th European
Italy
Congress of Applied Biotechnology
Horb in
Bio-Polymers in Broad Use - Potentials,
8 19.09.2019 19.09.2019 PROPLAST Neckar,
Opportunities and Challenges
Germany
EFFoST- European Federation of Food
Rotterdam,
9 12.11.2019 14.11.2019 UCSC Science and Technology, International
Netherlands
Conference
Brussels,
10 03.12.2019 04.12.2019 OULU Exergy BBI Projects Day & Stakeholder Forum 2019
Belgium
La Rioja,
11 29.11.2019 29.11.2019 CTIC CITA Ctic Cita Tech Summit 2019
Spain
Paris,
12 28.9.2019 30.9.2019 OULU-OBS 35th Annual IMP conference
France
Escape30 - 30th European Symposium on Milan, Italy
13 31.08.2020 02.08.2020 UCSC
Computer Aided Process Engineering (Virtual)
14 3.9.2020 4.9.2020 OULU-OBS 36th Annual IMP conference Virtual
6th epnoe international polysaccharide Aveiro,
15 21.10.2019 25.10.2019 LTU
conference Portugal
Food and Consumer Working Group -
16 07.10.2020 07.10.2020 CTIC CITA Plataforma Tecnológica Food for Life-Spain Virtual
(PTF4LS)
Sostenibilita’ ambientale dei prodotti e dei
processi produttivi: come la si può
17 18.12.2020 18.12.2020 PROPLAST raggiungere, attraverso il packaging, i Virtual
materiali, l’automazione, l’efficientamento
energetico

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Gent
18 21.01.2020 21.01.2020 BBEPP Sucr'eau
Belgium
Virtual
UOULU- event -
19 7.5.2021 7.5.2021 Pop-up: Eurooppa vihertyy - mutta miten?
MIC stream in
YouTube
ECP4 2021 - Online conference - Strategic
20 21.04.2021 21.04.2021 PROPLAST Research Needs for the European Plastics Virtual
and Composites Industry 2021
EFF2021 - Engineering Future Food Napoli, Italy
21 23.05.2021 26.05.201 UCSC
International Conference (Virtual)

2.5 Event kit

While face-to-face workshops where still taking place, Tritecc decided to offer the project partners the
possiblity to benefit from personalized event kits. Apart from the pens, post-its, roll-up and the general
Project brochure, all other materials offered were designed on demand. For the first project workshop
entitled “Development of innovative bioplastics for the food sector” a special flyer and certificates of
participation were designed.

Fig. 2.6 NewPack event kit

During the COVID pandemic and to effectively ensure visibility of the events organised exclusively online,
attractive materials were produced and an active social media campaign was activated. The campaign
was very succesful in raising awareness about the events and inviting participants to register for free.

Fig. 2.7 NewPack social media post examples

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