Healthy snack that reuses residues from wine production awarded by ANI and PortugalFoods
“Baguitas”, a new healthy snack, rich in fiber and with unique organoleptic characteristics, which reuses agri-food waste and by-products, such as grape pomace flour, won this year’s ECOTROPHELIA Portugal Award as well as the Born from Knowlegde Awards distinction ( BfK), awarded by PortugalFoods and the National Innovation Agency (ANI), respectively. The “Baguitas” project will represent Portugal at the “ECOTROPHELIA Europe”, an initiative that takes place in October, in Germany.
“Baguitas” are crunchy biscuits that use as main ingredient a flour obtained from grape pomace of the Touriga Nacional and Arinto varieties, supplied by Cooperativa Carmim – Cooperativa Agrícola de Reguengos de Monsaraz. It is, in fact, this innovative ingredient with high nutritional value, namely high fiber content and unique organoleptic characteristics, that the product owes its name.
The transformation of grape pomace into flour is the most sustainable method of using this food by-product, which results from the pressing of wine pastes used by the wine industry.
Developed by a multidisciplinary team of researchers in the areas of Nutrition Sciences and Communication Design at Universidade Lusófona, this was the project born of scientific and technological knowledge distinguished by ANI, and which values the residues and agri-food by-products of wine, whose waste and treatment have a high environmental impact. Reusing them for the creation of products with added value and nutritional quality is, therefore, a necessity and a goal of the circular economy.
In addition to the great advantages in reducing waste disposal or treatment costs, the “Baguitas” biscuit contributes to producers having a new source of income, in addition to valuing national products such as Apimigor honey, from Almodôvar, and dried fruits.
Local and seasonal, the “Baguitas” biscuits are handcrafted, but a possible industrialization in the future is within the promoters’ plans.
The ECOTROPHELIA Award aims to promote innovation, entrepreneurship and competitiveness in the agrifood sector at national and European level, bringing together and challenging students, professors, researchers and industry professionals to reflect on the eco-innovative products of the future.
Aimed at multidisciplinary teams of two to six higher education students, the ECOTROPHELIA Award aims to develop an innovative and sustainable food product at various levels, from concept, formulation, production, packaging to marketing, business and sales plans, without neglect the nutritional and sensory aspects.
Since 2017, ANI has awarded 39 projects and start-ups, born from academic research, in competitions and national innovation awards promoted by entities such as the Portuguese Association for the Development of Communications, Agricultural Credit, COTEC, BPI, Super Bock Group and Serralves , Altice Labs and Rock in Rio, through the Born from Knowledge (BfK) program.
For the first time since ANI and PortugalFoods are partners, the project that won the first place in the ECOTROPHELIA Portugal Award also received the BfK distinction.
