Last week, a project meeting took place in Spain in the collaborative project Accelwater, in which Matís participates. Two project managers from Matís, Sæmundur Elíasson and Hildur Inga Sveinsdóttir, attended the meeting and presented, among other things, the aspects of the project they have worked on.
The Accelwater project is about accelerating the cycle of water in the food and beverage industry across Europe, but the main goal of the project is to use value from water and reduce fresh water consumption during food processing. Numerous food producers and research partners are involved in the project, but Matís leads the work package that relates to Iceland, and here the emphasis is on land processing of whitefish and land farming of salmon. In addition to Matís, the Icelandic participants in the project are the University of Iceland's Faculty of Food and Nutrition, Útgerðarfélag Akureyri and Samherji Fiskeldi.
At the workshop, Hildur and Sæmundur presented the latest news about the Icelandic work package. The main news was about the installation of flow and energy sensors in whitefish processing in order to measure changes and achieve both water and energy savings in the processing. There, a master's student from Denmark is working on his final project around this work.
During the land fire, progress was reviewed in experiments with the utilization of sludge for fertilizer production. There is a system that filters the sludge and results in a mass of dry matter that can be used, among other things, in biogas or fertilizer. Experiments with dry bleeding of salmon and the possible use of salmon blood for value creation were also reviewed.
Finally, the results of the life cycle analysis, which is being worked on with the University of Iceland, were reviewed. The water use and environmental impact of the aquaculture industry and feed production are currently being analyzed there using the methodology of life cycle analysis.
In addition to this presentation, partners in the project located in Spain were visited. The meat processing company BETA was visited and the conditions were examined, but they are working to convert waste from the processing into value. MAFRICA's meat processing plant was also visited and they could see the waste treatment process developed in the Accelwater project. The waste/pig excrement is then put through a water purification process and a biogas plant, and the result is reusable water and energy, among other things in the form of biogas.
At the end of the trip, they had the opportunity to see the beautiful Montserrat mountain.
More information about the Accelwater project can be found here: Accelwater: Accelerating Water Circularity in Food and Beverage Industrial Areas around Europe