About us
Project Goals
The sustainable increase in livestock productivity cannot be achieved without the use of sustainable animal diets. Thereby, the sustainability of animal rations is crucial in livestock production systems where feed represents the most important production cost and efficiency is increasingly becoming important. The main topic of the project is to develop a “sustainable animal nutrition” concept, which integrates the importance of an efficient use of natural resources and environmental protection.
The aim of the project is to investigate the production and the use of by/co-products as new and innovative feed ingredients for a sustainable animal nutrition, such as ex foods (food leftovers for human) also known as Former Food Products (FFPs). These are recently considered an interesting alternative to traditional protein and energy sources for animal diets and are expected to be increasingly used as replacers for conventional feedingstuffs. They also represent a way for converting losses from the food industry into ingredients for animal feed, keeping nutrients in the food chain. From the circular economy point of view, both represent a way for upgrading food wastes to valuable feed ingredients.
All these features make the re-processing of FFPs biomass a highly attractive and sustainable source of several nutrients for the feed sector.
Italy and Serbia
New and alternative feed ingredients, are looked as an interesting alternative protein/energy sources for animal diets and are expected to be increasingly used around the globe as replacers for conventional feedingstuffs. From circular economy point of view, these materials (ex food, co-products, etc) represent a way by which food waste biomasses/streams mainly can be upgraded to valuable feed ingredients.
In this respect both Italy and Serbia can play an significant role. ITALY, thanks to its big food industry sector, is one of countries with the biggest former food potential (FFPs) in Europe. FFPs are defined as “foodstuff other than catering reflux, which were manufactured in full compliance with EU food law but are no longer intended for human consumption for practical and logistical reasons or due to problems in manufacturing or packaging which are unlikely to cause any health risks when used as feed”. They represent a way in which these high-quality unintentional food losses return to the food chain. To date, in the EU reprocessing of FFPs in feedstuffs is limited (3.3%) compared to the total food waste, and implement their use as feed, is a best practice for reducing the biomass for incineration and landfilling. SERBIA is an important producer of agricultural commodities in Central Europe. In fact, Serbia is one of the Europe’s important crop producers, particularly for maize (11% of EU), soya (35%), and sunflower (6%). Around 400,000 hectares of arable land is under these industrial plants. The largest share of areas under oleaginous plant (soy) is in the territory of Vojvodina, where processing capacities are also located. The production is of non Genetic engineered (GE) soy. In 2013, Serbia signed the “Danube Soya Association” Agreement promoting non-GE soya cultivation and processing in this region. In this scenario production and processing of these industrial crops generate several by/co-products and other alternative feedstuffs that need to be addressed and investigate deeply.
Team Italia
University of Milan
Prof. Luciano Pinotti
Full professor in Animal Nutrition and Feeding at the Department of Health, Animal Science and Food Safety (VESPA), University of Milan, Italy. Research interest: feed evaluation, alternative/innovative feed ingredients, sustainable animal nutrition.
Matteo Ottoboni
MSc in Science and Technology of Animal Production, PhD in Biotechnologies applied to veterinary and animal sciences, post doc fellow in Animal Nutrition group of the Department of Health, Animal Science and Food Safety (VESPA), University of Milan, Italy. Research interest: feed evaluation, alternative/innovative feed ingredients, sustainable animal nutrition with special emphasis on former foodstuff and insects.
Alice Luciano
MSc in Science and Technology of Animal Production, PhD student in Nutritional Sciences at the Department of Health, Animal Science and Food Safety (VESPA), University of Milan, Italy. Research interest: feed evaluation, alternative/innovative feed ingredients, sustainable animal nutrition with special emphasis on former foodstuff for pigs.
Francesca Fumagalli
MSc in Science and Technology of Animal Production, PhD student in Nutritional Sciences at the Department of Health, Animal Science and Food Safety (VESPA), University of Milan, Italy. Research interest: feed evaluation, alternative/innovative feed ingredients, sustainable animal nutrition with special emphasis on former foodstuff for livestock.
Nicoletta Rovere
DVM, PhD student in Nutritional Sciences at the Department of Health, Animal Science and Food Safety (VESPA), University of Milan, Italy. Research interest: feed evaluation, alternative/innovative feed ingredients, sustainable animal nutrition with special emphasis on former foodstuff and pet food.
Michele Manoni
MSc in Medical Biotechnology, Research Fellow at the Department of Health, Animal
Science and Food Safety (VESPA), University of Milan, Italy. Research interest: feed evaluation, alternative/innovative feed ingredients, sustainable animal nutrition.
Luca Ferrari
MSc in Chemical Sciences, scholarship for promising graduates for the scientific disciplinary area of agricultural and veterinary sciences at the Department of Health, Animal Science and Food Safety (VESPA), University of Milan, Italy. Research interest: feed evaluation, alternative/innovative feed ingredients, sustainable animal nutrition with special emphasis on in vitro digestion models.
Politecnico di Milano
Dr. Maria Cristina Rulli
Full Professor in Hydrology and Water Engineering at the Politecnico di Milano since 2002. She is author of a more than 80 peer-reviewed papers in the fields of hydrology, fluvial geomorphology, hillslope hydrology and stability, global water resources, and assessments of other natural resources under a variety of global change scenarios, such as climate change, deforestation, urbanization, land degradation, population growth, and changes in dietary shifts in dietary preferences, and changes in energy policies.
Dr. Davide Danilo Chiarelli
MSc degree in Civil Engineering, PhD and post doc in Civil and Environmental Engineering at the DICA department of Politecnico di Milano. Research interest: hydrological modelling, sustainability in the use of natural resources (i.e. water and fertile soil), crop water analysis under present and future condition, irrigation systems.
Camilla Govoni
MSc degree in Environmental Engineering, PhD in Water Engineering at the DICA department of Politecnico di Milano. Research interest: deforestation, fire and land use change, water footprint and water scarcity, crop analysis, resources associated to animal feeding
Team Serbia
Dr. Radmilo Colovic
Senior Research Associate at Research Center for feed technology and animal products, Institute of Food Technology (FINS), University of Novi Sad. Research interest: animal feed technology, quality and safety; valorization of food by products; sustainable food/feed production.
Dr. Olivera Djuragic
Senior Research Associate at Research Center for feed technology and animal products, Institute of Food Technology (FINS), University of Novi Sad. Research interest: animal feed technology, quality and safety; valorization of food by products; sustainable food/feed production.
Is senior research associate at the Institute of Food Technology, with a Ph.D. in Food Engineering at the Faculty of Technology, the University of Novi Sad in Serbia. Dr. Djuragic has over 26 years of experience in scientific work on fields such as feed quality and safety, technology of animal feed production, the processing of raw materials and finished compound feeds, the working accuracy of process, the utilization of agricultural and food by-products as well as on the implementation of feed safety quality system in feed mills.
Dušica Čolović
Graduated engineer in food technology, PhD in technology engineering. Research associate at research center for feed technology and animal products, Institute of Food Technology (FINS), University of Novi Sad. Research interest: alternative/innovative feed ingredients, oxidation processes in feed, fatty acid composition of feed and feed ingredients, feed preservation.
Vojislav Banja
Degree in Food Engineering, Ph.D. in Technology Engineering, works as a Research Associate in Research Center for feed technology and animal products at Institute of Food Technology (FINS), University of Novi Sad. Research interests: development of new feed products, optimization of feed production parameters and enhancement of nutritional and technological quality of feedstuffs.
Strahinja Vidosavljević
Master’s degree in Food Science, PhD student in Food engineering program at the Faculty of Technology, University of Novi Sad, Serbia, employed as research trainee at the Research Center for Feed Technology and Animal Products, Institute of Food Technology, Serbia. Research interest: Various methods for nutritional and physical improvement of raw materials, examination of the influence of the process parameters on the feed quality and optimization of the process, determination of physical, chemical and microbiological quality of the raw material as well as final products.
Slađana Rakita
PhD in technology engineering, Research Associate at Research Center for feed technology and quality, Institute of Food Technology (FINS), University of Novi Sad. Research interest: alternative/inovative feed ingredients, valorization of food by-products, feed quality, fatty acid composition of food and feed ingredients.