BASIQ is a cooperation project involving enterprises and scientific partners pursuing innovation in food production chains within an Integrated Plan, namely “Mangiare Corto per Guardare Lontano” (“eat short to see far”). It is coordinated by a “zero km” food producer (Cuoco a Domicilio & Co. Snc), engaging a set of breeding and agricultural farms as primary producers.
THE BASIQ LABEL: INNOVATION FOR SCIENTIFIC COMMUNICATION
In order to make scientific outcomes from advanced analyses clearly readable to the general public, a BASIQ label (designed by Indaco2) has been released per each product and the printed QR code allows to access a digital record to inform consumers. Results obtained from short chain products are much better than similar products of the food industry. The BASIQ products are sustainable, authentic and healthy.
Click on the image to access the product record
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OBJECTIVES
BASIQ pursues process-organisation innovation as an added value of food products starting from a clear characterisation in terms of Sustainability, Identity and Quality. It includes a pilot project of a new vegetable-fruit production chain based on ancient and autochthonous species.
Aiming at knowledge transfer from scientific partners to farmers and innovation capacity building focussing on processes and organisation of the production chain, a set of specific objectives follows:
Specific Objective 1 #sustainability: it consists in decreasing the environmental impact of products (e.g. low carbon or carbon neutral). Based on LCA – Life Cycle Assessment, different categories of impacts have been monitored per each lifecycle process, from the production of raw materials to their transformation, until their packaging. Indicators, such as the Carbon Footprint (ISO14067), are useful to provide a quantitative information on environmental implications of food production and figure out solutions for impact mitigation or compensation.
Specific Objective 2 #identity: it consists in the evaluation of originality of products as an added value for both producers and consumers. The territorial identity of typical products have been highlighted as the result of an established cultural and historical process, not repeatable elsewhere. Based on the genetic characterisation of autochthonous food, a series of BASIQ products can be univocally related to raw materials and specific geographical areas. Traceability is an important factor to ensure safety, authenticity and good quality of food.
Specific Objective 3 #quality: it consists in the evaluation of nutritional quality and healthy of products. Based on a set of specific analyses, results contribute to select high quality products and highlight their nutritional value. Outcomes will be also compared to similar products from conventional industrial productions.
As a final outcome, the selection of food products and chain processes to achieve lower environmental impacts, guarantee traceability and authenticity, ensure healthy and high nutritional values, contributes to increase their market value and support market oriented initiatives.
Food characterization based on sustainability, traceability and nutritional quality is matter of communication innovation. Solutions to promote food products based on their inner quality have been designed and tested during the project as demonstrated by the BASIQ labels above.
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