The 35 partners (half academic/private) of the International AgriLoop consortium aim to extend the agricultural production value of two major players of the global bioeconomy: EU and China, by eco-efficiently upgrading underexploited residues into a portfolio of high added-value bio-products able to generate new bio-based markets or to compete with, and gain market share of, oil- and food crops- based equivalents. AgriLoop will develop safe-and-sustainable-by-design (SSbD) bioconversion processes integrated in a cascading biorefinery approach to convert a range of agri-residues (from e.g. tomato, soy, straw, potato, brewery, oil, winery and livestock sectors) into plant and microbial proteins, polyesters and other bio-based chemicals to be used for food, feed, health and materials applications, especially by the farming sector. AgriLoop scientific and technical objectives are to i) improve the recovery of highly functional native molecules from primary and secondary residues and to tailor bioconversion schemes toward microbial proteins and polyesters, for overcoming in a balanced way the limitations related to feedstock complexity, processes eco-efficiency and end-products performances, and in parallel ii) anticipate the complex circularities of such biorefinery to comply with safe and sustainable requirements, guide scientific and technological advances of AgriLoop cascading processes toward end-products tailored to the just necessary (frugal design) and fast track their further adoption as demonstrated in upscaling selected biorefineries schemes. By strengthening EU-CN cooperation, informing SSbD guidance and opening up new avenues for flexible agri-based value chains, AgriLoop will increase resources efficiency through reduced discharges of agricultural residues, while taking share of the highly dynamic worldwide markets of alternative proteins and biochemicals (incl. biopolymers) and reducing the cost of agriculture and food system on our environment and health.

By 2030 over 9 billion people, along with animals raised for food or kept as companions, will need to be fed generating inconsistencies between the demand and supply of food resources and promoting food insecurity by rendering food as unavailable, unaffordable, unevenly distributed or unsafe to eat. Therefore, food security represents the big challenge of the 21st century and in that context one promising potential sustainable solution is insect farming. Edible insects are set to be approved in EU by late 2020 as novel food and insects also being a value food sources for farming animals; however research, innovation, farming protocols development and standardization, and a technology leap by robotizing and automatizing the mass rearing in insect farms is needed in order to concurrently scale the production and dramatically decrease the production costs. CoRoSect addresses the dramatic need of coupling research on bionomics and life cycle of insects intended to be used as food and feed, with new robotic tools and protocols for mechanization and automation of insect farming, which is a critical point stressed by the Technical Expert Consultation on Assessing the Potential of Insects as Food and Feed in Assuring Food Security. CoRoSect forms a novel integrated cognitive robotic ecosystems where the repetitive but also cognitively and physically demanding tasks requiring increased manual effort or continuous human supervision during the insects’ lifecycle, are replaced by automatic robotic-based procedures which will also draw upon research performed on understanding biological, technical and economic requirements of insect rearing and optimizing all involved processes. Focusing on real insect rearing problems, CoRoSect technologies will evaluated through large-scale pilots in 5 insect farms placed in 5 European countries rearing three of the most commonly occurring species, thereby contributing essentially to a secure and sustainable food supply in Europe.