Claudio Reinhard: PHENOLIVA

Claudio Reinhard is the Co-Founder of Gaia Technologies and is the project lead for the EIT Food project PHENOLIVA. The project aims to offer a healthy and sustainable food ingredient which contributes to the circular economy of olive oil production.

Olive oil production is responsible for large amounts of agricultural byproducts, with only 20% of the olive fruit harvested resulting in actual extra virgin olive oil. The remaining 80%, known as olive pomace, is considered waste. Most Mediterranean countries face serious environmental and economic problems handling this waste as its chemical composition creates challenges for stability, recycling and further processing. However, olive pomace itself has a high olive antioxidant content, meaning this abundant and low-cost byproduct has development potential for a wide range of value-added products.

The PHENOLIVA project brings together partners from the food industry, research and academia in order to implement an integrated waste management concept for the olive oil industry. Using a novel process, olive antioxidants from olive pomace are extracted and processed into an innovative food antioxidant. This process is fully circular. As part of this project, the team aim to create a startup to commercialise the results of this activity.

Other project partners include ETH Zurich, CSIC, Fraunhofer, Acesur, Maspex and Puratos.