May 08, 2025

The Centre de Recerca en Economia i Desenvolupament Agroalimentari (CREDA) is one of the entities participating in the European project FOODGUARD, an initiative that aims to reduce food loss and waste through the microbiome, with the design and use of innovative packaging and digital tools that increase the quality, safety and transparency of European products. Within the project, CREDA has two main tasks: (1) identify the gaps and challenges faced by stakeholders, to develop sustainable packaging that improves food quality; and (2) carry out a series of surveys of consumers in Europe on the proposal for sustainable packaging.

Tewodros Tadesse, a doctor at the centre and one of the colleagues involved in the project, explains where CREDA stands:

What is the current status of CREDA in the project?

CREDA is currently working on WP6, where the main role of the centre is to develop an instrument that allows studying the economic impact of the pilot cases implemented by the other partner entities. In this sense, CREDA has designed a ‘checklist‘ that is based on the cost-benefit relationship and acts as a draft of the final instrument, which will be developed once the comments of the other participants are collected.

In order to develop this list, during 2024 the CREDA team carried out a series of surveys of consumers who participated in the implementation of the pilot cases.

Once feedback from FOODGUARD partners has been collected, the Catalan centre will begin working on the final version of the instrument while analysing the data to present the pilot case results report and publish it. Thus, at the beginning of 2026, the project plans to implement the tool and start collecting data.