LIFE Project: Maximizing opportunities for a circular approach to sustainable olive pomace management through optimal insect culture

Olive oil production is an economic activity of great importance in the Mediterranean region, but it also has a high environmental impact due to the significant amounts of liquid and solid waste generated during the extraction process. Currently, Europe is the largest producer of olive oil worldwide. Spain remains the leading producer of olive oil in Europe with 780,000 tons produced in the 2022-23 season, followed by Greece (350,000 tons), Italy (235,000 tons), and Portugal (125,000 tons). For every liter of olive oil, between 4 and 6 kg of olive pomace (a mixture of olive skin, pulp, pits, and water) are generated. In Spain alone, between 6 and 9 million tons of olive pomace are generated annually. Currently, olive pomace is managed through oil mills that extract a high percentage of fats, obtaining marketable olive pomace oil. The waste produced in this process (dried olive pomace) is usually incinerated, a process that involves high energy and water consumption and, consequently, carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. Furthermore, the existing capacity of olive mills in Spain, Greece, and Portugal is insufficient to manage all the olive pomace generated, which often forces olive production plants to close due to storage limitations during good harvest seasons.

At the same time, livestock and aquaculture are growing sectors with a high environmental impact. The current use of meat, soy, and fish as feed is unsustainable. However, insects' feed conversion ratio (FCR) is much more favorable, as is their ability to convert lower-value materials into higher-quality ingredients, such as proteins and lipids, which matches the natural nutritional needs of aquaculture, poultry, and pig farming. The OLIFECycle project proposes a combined solution to these two environmental problems by transforming olive pomace, along with other organic waste, into value-added products through insect farming.