Food wasted every year is worth over £782 Billion; generating an estimated 8--10% of global greenhouse gas emissions (food loss and waste), and it takes up the equivalent of nearly 30 per cent of the world's agricultural land (UNEP Food Waste Index Report, 2024). In the UK alone, food waste totalled 10.7 million tons in 2021, contributing 25 million tons of CO₂ emissions (WRAP, 2023). This waste encompasses 6.4 million tons of edible food, costing the economy £21.8 billion annually. The Autonomous Bio-nutrient Recovery from Organic Waste (ABROW) project tackles these challenges through technological innovation and stakeholder collaboration. Central to this effort is the transformation of inedible food waste into bio-nutrients, a crucial step in creating sustainable, circular food systems. The materials produced not only reduce reliance on mineral fertilizers but also provide crops with readily available nitrogen, which can enhance crop quality and yield in shorter periods compared to traditional composting methods. **Technological Innovations** 1. Bio-Upcycling Robot - iDigest - The iDigest technology converts inedible food waste into bio-nutrients, fostering circularity by creating localized fertilizer solutions. This innovation enhances soil health, reduces landfill dependence, and mitigates GHG emissions from waste decomposition. 2. Food Tracker Platform - iTracker - Complementing iDigest, the iTracker platform monitors food waste streams, offering actionable insights to minimize edible food waste- supporting businesses in tracking sustainability metrics and optimizing waste reduction strategies while connecting the recovered bio-nutrients with local farmers. **The ABROW project leverages partnerships to ensure the success of its mission:** * University of Strathclyde supports digital manufacturing of iDigest units, ensuring scalability and reliability. * RBH Hospitality provides operational feedback, refining usability of iDigest in commercial Hospitality environments. * Craigies Farm operational feedback iDigest, refining usability of iDigest in commercial Agricultural environment. * SRUC support data analysis to measure soil health, biodiversity, and nutrient profiles when bio-nutrient from the iDigest is applied to soil for food production. **Quantifiable Impacts and Lasting Benefits** * Economic: Establishing a manufacturing hub for iDigest in Scotland will create 4 green jobs in sustainable manufacturing within the project period, aligning with Scotland's 2030 food waste reduction and net-zero goals (Scottish Government, 2022). * Environmental: Optimized bio-nutrient recovery reduces reliance on mineral fertilizers and enhances agricultural resilience. * Societal: Enhanced food security through improved soil health and reduced food waste. ABROW demonstrates a replicable, scalable approach to achieving sustainable, circular food systems through biotechnology and cross-sector collaboration, addressing global sustainability challenges while delivering local economic and environmental benefits.

During the 21st century, humanity is confronted with the grand challenge to increase agricultural production to achieve food security that can feed a population that is expected to grow to 10 billion people by 2050 against a background of increasing resource scarcity and climate change. This needs to be done while maintaining sustainable agricultural systems as we face challenges such as COVID-19 Pandemic, Ukraine/Russia war, a changing climate, depletion of water and soil resources, and the potential for increased erosion and loss of productivity due to the occurrence of extreme weather events. The National Food Strategy report highlighted the urgency to ensure that people have access to good food as over 1 million UK adults depend on food banks for survival. On a global scale, through access to good food, we can reduce the over 900 million people exposed to hunger and over 2 billion obese people accounting for 50% of the population in UK; a major condition linked to life threatening diseases such as diabetes, cancer and ultimately death. The UN food prices index already show an increase in prices of food which is at their highest since records began 60 years ago. Wheat is forecast to increase 42.7% and reach new record highs. Other notable increases will be 33.3% for barley, 20% for soybeans and 29.8% for oils and 41.8% for chicken. On the other hand there is increasing cost of feed -fertiliser for food production. At IntelliDigest, we have developed a nature inspired robot-iDigest to enhance the recovery of bio-nutrient in food waste to improve local food production. The iDigest is the most efficient and convenient solution to handling food waste and the most optimised for improved nutrient recovery. Each iDigest cycle takes place within 3-4 hours compared to other food waste handling solutions such as anaerobic digester that last for 7--21 days. In addition, iDigest process is completely odour free. More, importantly, the use of bio-nutrient from iDigest process has shown improved nutrient content in food production compared to standard nutrients available in the market. The bio-nutrients will be recovered and used in enhancing local food production in Horticulture/Livestock/Aquaculture/Insect farming. We have a funded trial by STFC Food Network carried out by Crop Health and Protection (CHAP) demonstrating that the bio-nutrient will be a great value in food production. More details can be found here - [https://www.stfcfoodnetwork.org/blog/intellidigest-an-innovative-solution-to-put-food-waste-to-work][0]. [0]: https://www.stfcfoodnetwork.org/blog/intellidigest-an-innovative-solution-to-put-food-waste-to-work

The United Nations has recently highlighted the impact of the broken food system on climate change. Over 1.3 billion tonnes of food waste, costing over £800 Billion, has led to over 3.3 Gtonnes of carbon dioxide being emitted. All this, while no less than 800 million people are hungry or malnourished globally. The most recent report by the Waste Resource and Action Programme indicates that the UK generates around 9.5 million tonnes of food waste each year, costing households and businesses a combined total of £19 billion. The three main biological treatment technologies used in the UK to treat food, garden and residual household waste include composting, anaerobic digestion (AD) and mechanical biological treatment (MBT) facilities. These use micro-organisms, such as bacteria, to break down the organic material in the waste. As the waste goes through different phases of break down, bioaerosols are released in potentially high concentrations around the waste treatment facilities. Bioaerosols contain particulate matter of microbial, plant or animal origin (bacteria, fungi, viruses, allergens, toxins, pollen, plant fibres, etc). Exposure to high concentrations of bioaerosols at biowaste facilities can result in adverse human health effects with links to respiratory and gastrointestinal illnesses. People who have a suppressed immune system are known to be at a higher risk of developing such conditions. To enhance the recovery of bio-nutrients and biochemicals from inedible food waste within households and businesses, while reducing exposure to bioaerosols, the iDigest - a nature-inspired robot - has been developed by IntelliDigest. It uses the same principles as our body to sense and analyse the composition of food waste, prompting the secretion of the right combination and quantity of enzymes to break it down, usually in less than 4 hours per cycle. Nutrients are then recovered from the iDigest for future use in food production. In this project, we will be working with NPL to develop a new method for the capture and sensitive analysis of bioaerosol emission during iDigest operation. Whatever the outcome, this activity is important to IntelliDigest. If bioaerosol levels are low or negligible, it will represent a vital step towards demonstrating to iDigest users that it is safe for use within indoor residential and occupational environments. If the results show that there is bioaerosol emission from iDigest, it will enable us to innovate our product further with improved safety in mind.