2021, what a year for Innovarum!

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About the Author: África Pardavila

Communications Manager - Africa owns a degree in Translation and Culture studies with a Chinese Mayor by Autonomous University of Madrid (ES), an MBA by ICEX-CECO and UIMP (ES) and a Master in Digital Marketing by Complutense University in Madrid (UCM). She also took business and language courses at Peking University (China) and worked in the Agri-food Promotion Department of the Commercial and Economic Office of the Embassy of Spain in Beijing (China). Throughout her educational and professional international experience, she’s built up a great passion for content creation, business development, digital marketing and creative processes.

As the year comes to an end and the days left for 2022 to begin can be counted on the fingers of our hands, we take a moment to think and remember what 2021 has been like. Innovarum is thankful for 2021; in the year the company celebrates its 8th birthday, projects have ended, projects have started, and new amazing people have joined the team.

Kicking of 2021 strong

Kick-Off Meeting of the COOPID H2020 project online

In January 2021 we launched COOPID, an incredible project that is now working to make the bioeconomy closer to EU primary producers through exchange experiences, networking, and interactive materials: without a doubt, one of our most exciting adventures for the next year.

In the same month, the team welcomed a new Project Manager: Anna Jorquera, a geologist with great expertise in environmental issues and a sweet passion for bakery (and for the chemical reactions that make a cupcake perfect!).

Not long after, we said goodbye to the GreenProtein BBI JU project in April 2021. After almost 5 years of teamwork; the journey came to an end. We closed the project with a DEMO Plant running and a very promising future for a vegetable protein previously forgotten within the leaves of sugar beets: RuBisCo, the most abundant protein on earth and the closest to animal proteins in its amino acid composition and performance.

The season warms up!

The summer got closer, the weather got warmer, and the #EUGreenWeek got around the corner. The 31st of May 2021 various projects joined their voices to present their Agri-food innovative solutions, and their potential for a #ZeroPollutionEU in the #EUPartnerEvent we organised on the occasion: Agri-food solutions towards a zero pollution EU.

Then, we kicked off OLEAF4VALUE in July 2021. OLEAF4VALUE works with olive mills and olive oil producers: olive leaves (as sugar beet leaves) have also an enormous hidden potential. Currently underused, different types of ingredients with industry applications lay hidden waiting for OLEAF4VALUE to make the most of them.

Summer came to an end in September, just for the anniversary of the 8th birthday of Innovarum. Our company was founded back in 2013 during the agri-bio-tech revolution: fantastic innovative ideas and projects were popping out in the fields, and we are very happy (and amazed) to have supported many of them become a reality today.

Innovarum at the Award Ceremony of “Premio Emprendedoras” in 2019, a highlight from the last 8 years

Leaves fall, people come, projects go

Talking about leaves, as they started to fall from the trees and October entered the scene, Chema Castellano, an environmental biologist with extensive expertise in EU projects preparation, also stepped in as our new Senior Proposal Writer. Chema has travelled the world and lived in different and exotic places, he enjoys the adventure outdoors as much as the quietness of his writing profession.

The same month also marked the end of Pro-Enrich and of its research for the development of novel functional proteins and bioactive ingredients from various agri-food side streams. With GreenProtein, Pro-Enrich was the project that had been running the longest with us: farewell, dear friends!

Closing the loop: last months of the year

Kick-Off Meeting of the SISTERS H2020 project at the headquarters of AITIIP Technological Centre

October got behind and November left the floor to SISTERS, an ambitious project with plans to impact the whole agri-food value chain in the coming 4.5 years.

Andrea León– an avid visual designer and content creator- joined the team to give its all to the communication of the project as Innovarum´s new Content Manager. Andrea has a brave mindset, a clear approach to the tasks at hand, and a soft spot for the smell of roasted coffee beans and a good cup of coffee in the morning.

November was also the month when the VALUEWASTE project opened its Pilot Plant in Murcia (Spain), where organic biowaste from the city of Murcia is transformed into new valuable ingredients. Circularity in EU cities first-hand!

And finally, we get to December, where we find ourselves looking back to the months behind. We are not missing the elephant in the room; a world pandemic has still been with us throughout the whole journey this year – a different challenge that has impacted us all in different ways, as it is possible to see in “online” COOPID kick off meeting picture at the begining of this post.

2022: new year ahead

We leave a great year behind, but even a better one lays upon us:

We are now a strong team of 9 people, great professionals, and fantastic individuals.
We have said goodbye to 2 amazing projects. But, for 2022, we will focus on the now 6 active collaborative projects we have in our hands. As Communication Leaders and supporters, we could not be more excited to talk about this.
The agri-food sector still has a lot to show and a lot to give. Technological innovations, environmental challenges to address, impactful solutions to share… and we are ready to bring them forward to the market once again.

All in all, Innovarum wants to wish every single one of the people and organisations we have worked with in 2021 a very happy holiday and an exciting and promising New Year.

We are looking forward to working with you, and in case we still haven’t had the chance, to meeting you in coming projects.

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