*6.2. Impacts*

In Europe, the food and drink industry is one of the most significant sectors with a turnover of around 1100 billion euros and 4.24 million people employed [114]. The reduction of food waste is a problem that the sector faces for ethical, economical and limitation of natural resources [1]. Around 88 million tons of food waste are generated annually within the EU, with an estimated cost of 143 billion euros [4]. The United Nations has settled its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in which they firmly bet for food waste and loses reduction [2,3]. Therefore, the InnovaEcoFood project is part of the Sustainable Development Goal n.12-responsible consumption and production.

Grape is a product rich in sugars and antioxidants of high nutritious interest. The partners' technological capability made it possible to diversify the sector, introducing new actors that will find an added value to by-products. On the other hand, rice is rich in lipids and gamma-oryzanol, with antioxidant, anti-inflammatory e ffects, acting positively on lipid metabolism and cholesterol regulation.

In this project, the partners developed a new methodology to incorporate new players in the value chain of rice and wine processing to jump from a linear system to a circular one using the SD as a basis. Another EU's priority is diversifying and revitalizing the economy to create quality jobs in a rural environment. In Europe, 19.8% of the population lives in rural areas, but the reality shows a negative trend since decades ago with the examples of the aging of the population, low birth rate, and most companies in cities [115]. The InnovaEcoFood project presents a new approach to transforming the rice and wine sector's linear value chains into a systemic approach that can generate value in rural environments, expanding to other sectors like food, biopolymers, and textiles. On the one hand, focusing on the wine sector is interesting to maximize its impact and replicability among the European territory. On the other hand, focusing on the rice sector helps give importance to territorial/local cultivation. Beyond the rice and wine sectors, the InnovaEcoFood project will also reach other value chains, enhancing its impact.

The project could have an impact at the European level, especially considering wine waste. Indeed, grape crops are one of the main extended agro-economic activities globally. Currently, up to 210 million tons of grapes (*Vitis vinifera* L.) are produced annually, and 15% are addressed to the wine industry. Figure 8 shows the distribution of crops. Within the agro-food industry, grapes and wine productions generate one of the most valued products worldwide. As we already mentioned in Section 4.2, waste and by-products represent approximately 20% of the produced wine. The wine sector has specific importance in Europe's food and drinks sector as the region is one of the leaders in production. The sector has a revenue of more than 40 billion euros [116] and for some European areas revenues from wine represent a high share compared to other agricultural activities as indicated in Figure 9. Currently, the European wine industry's supply chain is a linear one in which by-products are considered waste, or they either meet minimum economic value and value is created by maximizing the number of end products produced/sold only. InnovaEcoFood has developed a pilot plant, including three di fferent small enterprises. It is considered as a first milestone to boost the development of a bio-based economy in Europe.

**Figure 8.** Winegrowing regions. Source: EU Wine Market Data Portal [117].

**Figure 9.** The importance of wine in total agricultural area (2005). Source: EU Wine Market Data Portal [117].

On the other hand, rice cultivation is not so diffused in Europe. As can be noticed from the map in Figure 10, Italy is the largest producer of rice in Europe. Italy alone accounts about 49% of all EU production [118], and the two regions mentioned above (Piedmont and Lombardy) are two regions that produce between 400 and 800 MT/year each. However, this value chain gives us an example of how it is possible to enhance regional peculiarities and their by-products with the use of SD.

Therefore, this paper presents two very different value chains, which have in common their relevance for the Piedmont region:


Nowadays, agricultural by-products' valorization is still a grea<sup>t</sup> challenge, especially in a small-scale setting in rural areas. These by-products represent grea<sup>t</sup> potential for the generation of high added-value products. In this context, it is necessary to create and develop new business models adapted to rural areas that diversify the income sources of these small producers, creating jobs and ultimately revitalizing rural areas thanks to the bio-economy.

**Figure 10.** Rice production (2010–2014 average). Source: Eurostat [118].

#### *6.3. Limitations of the SD Approach*

The diffusion of SD is often limited by national/regional policies that do not support its development. Another limit is the difficulty of connecting companies and promoting dialogue for a common goal. The difficulty of stimulating systemic changes emerges when economic benefits are not immediately measurable, but positive effects will be measurable in a few years. The experience shows how many CE opportunities can be found. However, we are aware that each connection of the scheme and consequent valorization should face regulatory, technical, cultural, and financial barriers, so policymakers can play a crucial role in helping businesses overcome these barriers. Regulatory barriers include, for example, the definitions of waste that hinder trade and transport of by-products, the tight division in sectors, and so on. Technical barriers are related to the innovations that allow giving higher quality to the waste (for example, the quality of recycled materials requires R&D actions), and the ability to scale them up at the industrial level. In other cases, the value chains are not complete, especially from the supply of agricultural by-products. How to guarantee constant quality and quantity of supply is another key issue related to seasonality and other variables. At a cultural level, the is the need to increase the awareness of the potential use of secondary materials, especially in the food sector. The Complex Systems approach defines:


These properties set the difference with 'closing the famous circles of production', or finding alternative waste destinations to landfills. The goal is to shift the focus from the product to the territory [119]. However, there is a lack of successful case studies history in each sector able to ensure that the application of SD will bring assured economic benefits since each project is tailored to a specific value-chain. The complex dynamics involved have often prevented the comparison of different business models.

## *6.4. Future Research*

The project focused only on a tiny portion of the overall system since the regional funds from which it drew were limited. However, the project can start from this first part and extend suddenly to fill some current experimentation gaps. For the wine supply chain, the continuation of the project should include experimentation in the direction of:


Another step forward could be to expand and diversify the sector by mobilizing a more comprehensive range of players in the consortium, including small businesses, farmers, and their associations. Indeed, the scalability discussed in Sections 5.5 and 6.2 would deserve further investigation, proposing pilot cases in other EU wine-producing regions. It would also be interesting to see how different value chains can be connected in other regions.
