*5.1. Objectives*

InnovaEcoFood aims to create value from rice and vine waste, typical of the Piedmontese culture, by obtaining food products. This project's overall goal is to boost rural development by demonstrating and rolling out innovative 'small-scale' 'bioeconomy-based' 'systemic design-enabled' sustainable business models.

InnovaEcoFood aims to demonstrate that linear winery and rice value chains can be analyzed and transformed into progressively more systemic value chains. Subsequently, these can be integrated into circular networks of value-generating rural business cases considering other bio-based processes and expanding toward other sectors, such as construction, textile, polymers.

Within the InnovaEcoFood project, the research team contributes to experimenting with the residues of Piedmontese rice and wine-winery production value chain using the SD approach. The project aims to show that companies' competitiveness can be improved by applying SD and integrating the latest technology to valorize unused agricultural residues. For that reason, technological partners of this project own technologies capable of processing by-products or extracting bioactive compounds that could be reintroduced in the process being applied to food.

## *5.2. Technological Partners*

A sample of this new player in the value chain is one of the partners of InnovaEcoFood project: Agrindustria di Tecco (Cuneo, Italy; www.agrind.it), an SME operating since 1985 in the field of the valorization of secondary plant products deriving from regional value chains. It produces vegetable granules and micronized products for successive chemical extraction; it processes vegetable matrices and biomaterials for di fferent production sectors (Figure 4).

**Figure 4.** Illustration of Agrindustria processes (cryogenic mill and steam auger). Source: Agrindustria.

In this project, Agrindustria dealt with mechanical treatment (mainly drying, grinding and micronization) of grape marc and rice hull to obtain flours that can act as an alternative to wheat flour, with high protein content (Figure 5). On the other hand, a new actor like Exenia Group (www.exeniagroup.it)from the province of Turin (Italy), deals with tech applications in biotechnology. Exenia was founded in November 1995 with the specific entrepreneurial project to become one of the first examples, in Italy, of a company able to combine high-tech technologies and new products for highly dynamic markets. The constant investment in R&D responds to a model widely spread in the USA (e.g., Dedicated Biotechnology Companies), Japan and Northern Europe. Exenia Group is involved in research and experimental development: extraction of active ingredients from plants, extracts and production of essential oils, research and development on 'clean' technologies for the extraction of raw materials for food, cosmetics, nutraceutical and pharmaceutical products, research and development on photosynthetic microorganisms, cultivation, study, research, development and industrial use, also on behalf of third parties, of new products in the field of biotechnology and natural products. Exenia uses supercritical fluids (CO2) for food, pharmaceutical and cosmetic applications. Extraction conducted with fluids under supercritical conditions is a valid alternative to traditional

separation systems, such as fractional distillation, steam current extraction, solvent extraction. This type of extraction offers the possibility to continuously vary the fluid's solvent power to conduct the extraction with little pressure and/or temperature variations.

**Figure 5.** Mechanical treatment of wine and rice by-products from Agrindustria to obtain flours. Source: DISAT.

During the project, Exenia obtained the physical-chemical refining of high value-added molecules from rice hull (or bran), cooperating with the Department of Applied Science and Technology (DISAT) of the Politecnico of Torino and the production of a butter (rice bran lipid) rich in gamma-oryzanol for food or nutraceutical use.

#### *5.3. Systemic Design Method and Schemes*

As can be found in the Appendix A, a desk research highlighted several possible applications of by-products. The applications were collected, summarized and schematized in Figure 6 for the rice supply chain and Figure 7 for the wine sector, combined with field data collected from Aironi and Bocchino companies in 2018. These are two systemic visualizations that have been subsequently submitted to different actors for validation.

**Figure 6.** A systemic value chain proposed for rice.

**Figure 7.** A systemic value chain proposed for wine.

The diagrams shown in Figures 6 and 7 are intended to provide a general overview of all the Piedmont applications for the by-products (output) of these specific sectors. By-products are generated at various levels in the cultivation and processing of rice (Figure 6), as well as during viticulture and winemaking (Figure 7).

To provide readers with a shared legend, we attribute some color codes. The two supply chains share one phase of harvesting and processing, indicated in the figures as full black boxes. The main products obtained are highlighted in pink, i.e., refined and whole-grain rice in one case, wine in the other. Green is for the outputs treated as new inputs (e.g., husks, bran, straw, etc. for rice; marc, lees, grape seeds, pruning waste, etc. for wine) and the products circulating as flows through the processing (paddy rice, bran, and bran flour, but also bunches, marc and so on). In blue, instead, are reported the processing. The orange boxes distinguish the new products (finished products, or molecules with high added value). The red boxes are the sectors and other production activities with which the project could relate. Instead, the black frame indicates possible symbiotic activities, intending to achieve an industrial symbiosis.

Finally, the full boxes distinguish the processes that have been activated during the InnovaEcoFood project. In contrast, the framed or outlined box indicates the processes and products that could be obtained, which have not been thoroughly investigated ye<sup>t</sup> during this project but are reported in the scientific literature as viable solutions. We indicate the boundaries of the InnovaEcoFood project system with a red dotted line. For the rice value chain, we can see that all the activities fall within the system's boundaries activated by the project. In the case of the wine value chain, instead, distillation (the current linear process for marcs) has not been included within the system boundaries, as its outputs that are difficult to exploit on a systemic level. For this reason, it is considered outside the project. The production of the food products resulting from the project is detailed in the following paragraph.

#### *5.4. Production of Food from Waste*

During the InnovaEcoFood project, we decided to operate in human nutrition, in particular for the study and development of food products with high added value such as creams and bakery products. Indeed, the project investigates the production of new ingredients to produce new food

products. The two companies mentioned above have provided know-how and technologies to enable the food company Quasani - Fattoria della Mandorla (www.fattoriadellamandorla.it/progetto-quasani) to develop foods with high nutritional, organic and health value supported by scientific literature and primary prevention guidelines. Within the project, they have been involved in integrating these outputs as ingredients, creating ad hoc recipes containing hull flour, marc flour and rice butter rich in gamma-oryzanol. The products are all processed without lactose, animal milk protein, hydrogenated fats, GMOs, cholesterol and gluten. The company has integrated the by-products supplied by Agrindustria and Exenia into foods such as food creams (core business), but also crackers and taralli, thus inserting the rice bran resulting from hulling, flour derived from post-winery grape skins, and rice butter from supercritical CO2 extraction from rice hull. The company evaluates the expansion of its creams and other products, integrating processed waste from rice and wine production chains and high value-added molecules. Rice is a product widespread in the territory and has high organoleptic qualities but is scarcely used in the cream sector due to the greater di fficulty of processing compared to other vegetable products such as soy. However, the use of rice and its by-products o ffers interesting potential for food innovation, as well as the possibility to trace the raw material. Bran is a by-product containing vitamins, minerals, essential fatty acids, dietary fiber, and other sterols that make it suitable for human nutrition. As already mentioned, numerous studies already tested its healthy properties, such as rebalancing thyroid hormones, improving muscle endurance, regulating cholesterol levels, preventing heart disease, and the formation of kidney stones. It has anti-carcinogenic properties, regulates the intestine, stabilizes blood sugar.

#### *5.5. The Relationships Implemented by the Project*

Regarding the processes activated by the InnovaEcoFood project and the relationships established, the project has experimented with flour from grape marc and rice hull, and rice butter produced through supercritical CO2 extraction. The project partner Agrindustria Tecco Srl supplied the grape pomace and rice hulls by activating new relationships with unusual suppliers to find the material to be tested. The dry and moist grape pomace and hulls have been found in the Piedmont area. InnovaEcoFood aims to create new products for the food sector and no longer feed, as it is not very profitable. The cooperation activated during the project suggests that it is possible to create clusters of companies dedicated to valorizing specific by-products, providing for symbiotic activities and cascade approaches. Agrindustria partner provided the connection between the producers and the high-tech partner (Exenia), e ffectively collecting, storing and preparing the secondary raw materials for subsequent applications. Indeed, mechanical processing was carried out by Agrindustria, including cryogenic grinding, bacterial load reduction, and final drying. In the scheme, we refer to these activities as 'mechanical processing'. The rice hull was then transferred to Exenia's site (60 km), where the supercritical CO2 extraction process took place. In the scheme, we refer to these processes by indicating them as 'processing and valorization'. The hull and grape pomace flour obtained from the project were sent to Quasani—Fattoria della Mandorla (1000 km away) to produce crackers, 'taralli', and creams. The rice butter obtained from the experimentation was also sent to Quasani. Evaluating these interactions with a circular economy view supports the hypothesis that we cannot refer to this process as recycling. We like the idea of being part of the CE strategy that rethink supply chains to be more circular. Systemizing activities and possible solutions allow anyone to visualize the connections between them and identify the gaps for connecting activities at the national or even EU levels, as discussed in the next section. One strength of the SD approach is the ease of changing scale, from micro to macro and vice versa.
