Consumer demand is oriented towards healthy foods controlled not only under a safety point of view, but also under a welfare assessment of the animals'' living conditions. The objective of the project is to investigate the possibility of using wastes (by-products produced from food processing industry, i.e dairy, wine lees, starch residues, wheat bran, juice pulp, oil residues, etc) as renewable bio resources for the preparation of functional ecofeed. The project consists in the design and development of new special functional, nutraceutical products focusing the attention on microbial foods. These microbial food supplements, known as probiotics, beneficially affect the host animal by improving its intestinal microbial balance. Bacterial Probiotics would improve the efficacy of forage digestion, protect animals against pathogens, enhancing the immune response, reducing antibiotic use and providing high index of safety. Probiotics would improve feed conversion for the target species, and provide benefits for the consumer through improved food (milk, meat, cheese) product quantity and quality.

The project will consists in the following main research activities:
1. Basic research for quality control and safety of the wastes by analytical methods, proteomics platform and microbiological analyses;
2. Basic research for the formulation and preparation of recycled ingredients for ecofeed.
3. Basic research useful to develop the appropriate technology for the production of ecofeed from recycled wastes, testing bacterial, yeast and fungal probiotics appropriately selected;
4. Basic research to identify and characterize existing probiotic strains, determine optimal doses needed for certain strains and evaluate their stability through processing and digestion;
5. Evaluate how different ecofeed for calves influence the productive performance, milk, and meat quality characteristics and safety;
6. Evaluate how different ecofeed for calves influence the welfare assessment.
7. Improving integration in farm animal welfare research. Technical Specifications / Specific technical requirements: VII FP Project  Cooperation
Call Title: FP7-KBBE-2010-4
Topic: KBBE.2010.2.4.03: Quality and safety aspects of feed


Partner sought:
- Research centre operating in the field of microbiological analysis of feed and waste (mainly dairy industry);
- Company producing packaging solutions for food;
- Veterinary institute for livestock health assessment;
- Companies specialized in ultra filtration and/or distillation;
- Company able to produce the final product (ecofeed);
- Company and or research centre operating in the field of toxicological control of the final product;
- Feed-stuff factory;