The IRTA is involved in a European project of support to the SMEs to innovate on nutrition and health
May 23, 2011
However, in the current context, SMEs continue to face major difficulties, because the constant changes in an increasingly competitive global market makes it more difficult to combine innovation and research with the daily production.
For that reason, the month of January, a consortium of seven international partners launched the project FOODSME-HOP, an acronym for 'Tutoring to SMEs from the agro-food sector of the SUDOE space for the launch of its innovative activity in the development of healthy products'. The project has been granted the programme initiative community Interreg IVB South West European (SUDOE) of the European Fund for Regional Development (ERDF), with a budget of more than 900,000 euros and a period of two years. This cooperation between centres of technological research of Spain, Portugal and France expected to foster innovation in the agri-food sector, supporting SMEs for industrial development in the SUDOE region. The IRTA is one of the partners of the Consortium representing Catalonia.
One of the main motivations of the project lies in the information obtained from various studies indicating that SMEs have a great potential for innovation, but that the lack of sufficient human and financial, with a general lack of knowledge of the processes of innovationmake a strategy for global action required to carry out such projects. To this end, FOODSME-HOP to advise those SMEs that lack the specialized resources to carry out innovative projects, provided they demonstrate a proactive approach to this challenge.
Within the framework of the improvement of nutrition and health, the project will take place mainly in the search for viable solutions for the reduction or replacement of salt, sugars, fats and additives in foodstuffs.
Companies participating in the project and after an initial phase of identification of SMEs that have a high potential for innovation, will define a system of orientation through which companies will receive support in technological terms and innovation management. In a second phase of the project is expected to launch a platform of information which will help to increase the knowledge of the companies in these aspects and, finally, develop demonstration projects of food products that respond to the ideas more innovative SMEs.
Although the purpose of the members of the FOODSME-HOP is the work on a continuous and direct with a rough group of 130 SMEs, information and products generated within the framework of the project will be available to any company in the sector of southern Europe.
