“Countries that border the Mediterranean Sea have a lot in common and they are strictly interconnected since millennia. The idea we are developing can play a crucial role in the health of soils since it allows us to recycle the organic matter through the soil and thus limiting some adverse processes, such as desertification processes. For this, it will be nice to find collaboration with other entrepreneurs from the southern shore of the Mediterranean”.

These statements, made by the FertiVino team, are very promising. Michela studied Food Technology and she has some experience in the food and the agricultural sector; she thinks that this is the time for having her own business in the agroindustrial sector. Fabiano is a researcher at the University of Cagliari and his main focus is the valorisation of agro-industrial wastes via biological processes; in addition, his family owns a vineyard and for a long time, he has been thinking of focusing on wine-making wastes for a long time. In this context, BESTMEDGRAPE fits perfect with both of them!

Fabiano heard of BESTMEDGRAPE during his research activities; the main reason that prompted him to participate in this program is the awareness that technology development is nowadays running faster than ever. Michela heard about the project by some friends, since they knew that she is very interested in valorizing agricultural biowaste.

“Thanks to the BESTMEDGRAPE project, we are starting to understand the business world”

Fabiano and Michela expected to learn about the world of startups and how to turn their research ideas from lab scale to real scale. In some sectors, such as biowaste valorisation, the gap between lab-scale products and commercial-level products can be very narrow, thus they believe that BESTMEDGRAPE can play a crucial role for the technology transfer, strengthening the collaboration between universities and the business world. They are sure that all the new skills they are learning thanks to the project, will help them in the future as an entrepreneurs.

Being working on applied research, they have different ideas that have the potential to be applied to the real case scenario. In their opinion, one of the most promising ideas that matches their experience and the aim of BESTMEDGRAPE, it is the development of innovative biofertilizer for organic agriculture.

According to their idea, the agroindustrial sector needs substantial changes from the point of view of sustainability, and they are sure to have the knowledge for paving the way towards an innovative and sustainable approach in the agricultural systems.