Our Partnerships on Health and Nutrition

We continue our sustainabilty journey by investing in research on health, nutrition, and technological innovation for the supply chain.

We promote scientific research and innovation through valuable strategic partnerships to consolidate our sustainability leadership. The aim is to empower and encourage a sustainable development model and collaborate in seafood products’ nutritional, health and quality enhancement through a transformative, scientific, holistic and integrated approach.

This approach has involved the synergy of multidisciplinary expertise through collaborations with universities, research institutes and non-governmental organizations. We aim to find impactful, concrete and practical solutions to the new challenges that today’s world imposes by contributing to social, cultural and scientific change to promote economic, environmental and consumer health sustainability.

Today, we are working on two different areas:

  • Scientific studies on the relationship between the consumption of fish, fresh or canned and human heath.
    We have created several initiatives to promote this aspect of our research. Partnering with: ONFOOD, University Federico II of Naples, Mario Negri Pharmacological Research Institute in Milan and the North-West University in South Africa.
  • Increasing the value of fish with innovative projects aimed at improving the yield and the use of waste by transforming it into products with a high value. This key aspect is being developed particularly with Horizion 2020 and through our partnership with the University of MIlan.

We are committed to promoting the Nutritional value of fish consumption by studying the relationship between fish and our health. For this reason, we have envisioned ONFOODS.

ONFOODS, a foundation formed by 26 entities engaged in the food and nutrition sector like Universities, Research Institutes, National companies and Cooperatives. This Foundation aims to improve the future of the community and the supply chain through the definition of a new sustainable food model and is part of one of the 14 partnerships envisaged by the Italian National Recovery and Resilience Plan in the thematic area “Models for Sustainable Food. ONFOODS provides funding to member entities in the amount of 114.5 million euros earmarked for fundamental research, industrial, and experimental development project activities to bring value to the food supply chain and the community.

We understand the importance of reducing food waste and are investing our energy to find new ways to produce and reinvent our processes while creating new possibilities for tuna products. For this reason, we successfully participated in Horizon 2020, Europe’s funding program for research and innovation, with a budget of 95.5 billion euros. This found tackles climate change, helps to achieve the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals and boosts the EU’s competitiveness and growth.

We are currently working on non-plant biomass feedstock for industrial applications. With the aim to:

  1. Increased sustainability of biomass resources: lowering land dependence and Indirect Land Use Change (ILUC); protecting biodiversity and ecosystems integrity.
  2. Climate-neutrality: Green House Gas reduction and possible carbon removal; zero pollution; resource efficiency via circular economy concepts.
  3. Improved industrial competitiveness: strategic autonomy and resource independence of bio-based value chains.
  4. Environmental, economic and social benefits: on territorial and municipal level, due to increased circularity and upcycling of low-value waste of terrestrial or aquatic origin, including its upcycling into high-value applications.
  5. SMEs engagement, including the regional dimension, for skilled jobs creation.
  6. Increased cooperation and awareness across circular bio-based value chains, including waste managers, biomass feed stock providers, bio-based (process) industry, end-users and the civil society.

Since the launch of the green deal the dedicated Farm to Fork reform of the food system, we have witnessed the introduction of a new operative system which see the collaboration of public and private entities to overcome the incredible challenges we are facing. Public-Private cooperation can positively affect the path toward a greater good.  We welcomed and anticipated such a change in the ways of working and now collaborate with academia and research centers. Some of our key activities include:

  • Supporting the new and unique International Master’s Degree Course in Sustainable Food Systems promoted by the Department of Agriculture of the University of Naples Federico II.
  • Co-founded two doctoral scholarships to study technological innovation in the fish supply chain at the University of Milan’s Ph.D. program in Biomolecular, Experimental, and Clinical Pharmacological Sciences.
  • Developing numerous scientific research partnerships of international nature. Among these, we have collaborated with the Mario Negri IRCCS (Mario Negri Pharmacological Research Institute in Milan) on the effect of canned fish consumption on cancer risk.
  • Publishing in peer-reviewed scientific journals the effects of fish consumption on cardiovascular risk, investigated in collaboration with North West University in South Africa and a panel of experts.
  • Ongoing investigations into the relationship between shellfish consumption and cognitive functions.
  • Together with the University of Bologna, we recently joined a Horizon2020 project to promote technological innovation in fish waste and maximize its use for human consumption.

There are several reasons why fish is one of the best options for a healthy diet. Here are eight reasons why eating fish regularly is important.

Traceability is an essential tool to guarantee food safety.