Tecnova held its first online board of trustees last Tuesday to approve the 2019 annual accounts, activity report and audit. During the meeting, a tour was made analyzing the companies with which it had worked both in projects and in services, the new methodologies implemented to point and the different departments and the presentation of the year 2019 faced by the Technology Center, transferring the challenges assumed during it, projects carried out, implementation abroad and promotional activities, among other topics.

There are more than one hundred patron companies that place their trust in Tecnova as an Agroindustry Technology Center and as a cluster, but the total number of companies with which it has worked amounts to 289 in 2019. Talent management at Tecnova is a priority, reaching 45 specialized workers in each of the areas in which it works and with extensive experience in the agro-industrial sector.

The volume of clients, projects and services grows

Throughout 2019 Tecnova has developed activities aimed at attracting and retaining customers. He has performed services with national and international companies, from the design and validation of greenhouse structures, behavior tests of new materials and substrates for agricultural use, evaluation of nutritional products and technologies applied to fertigation, analysis and validation of new plastics for agriculture, sanitation treatments and application of clean technologies, functional foods, nutritional and food safety analysis and advice on project management and search for aid for co-financing.

Regarding R & D & i projects, in 2019, funding was sought and 62 projects were executed with national and international companies, in addition we worked with the research staff to generate new knowledge in order to subsequently diversify and collaborate with others sectors and, for this, they have carried out 19 own R&D projects on various topics, such as: breeding insects suitable for human consumption, efficient use of water, innovation and adaptation to climate change of the pecan, technological design for a cultivation of high productivity, improved management of the olive grove and incorporation of eco-sustainable systems to improve oil extraction, safety in composting processes with fungi, implementation of residue 0 agriculture techniques with grape growers, use of clean technologies to improve flavor and quality in papaya.

Adding all this to a total of 81 projects, with the aim of offering solutions to companies in the agro-industrial sector represented by the Tecnova technology center and working for it, identifying current needs, visualizing trends both at the final consumer level and at the industrial level to make them available to companies and provide them with value so that they are more competitive.

Another line in which Tecnova works is the provision of services in its different laboratories of microbiology, chemical physics, postharvest, plastics, molecular biology, where analytics are carried out on the analysis of bioactive compounds in fruits and vegetables, microbiological parameters related to food safety, postharvest quality analysis, resistance of plastic covers, composition of deteriorators such as copper, sulfur, iron and chlorine, ethylene emission rates, profile of volatile compounds, fatty acids, macro and micro elements, vitamins, enzymatic activity; as in its two pilot plants of IV range and robotics where it performs trials and tests on new product developments and mechanization and robotization to automate processes both in the field and in the handling warehouses.

And its star project which is the experimental farm where hundreds of entrepreneurs pass throughout the year and where varietal, nutritional, plant health, plastic film, precision agriculture, climate control, robotics, renewable energy field trials are carried out. , subtropical and high productivity. At an international level, 59 services and projects have been developed, participating with organizations in 15 different countries such as: Germany, Belgium, Korea, Egypt, France, Holland, India, Jordan, Indonesia, Morocco or Tunisia.

Regarding the income of the 2019 financial year, Tecnova has had 76% private financing, and 24% public financing to which it has presented competitive projects both at the regional, national and international level, with several H2020 projects.

Adding value to Agroindustry through Research and Development

The Tecnova Technological Center, in its priority for offering answers and solutions to the entire fruit and vegetable production chain, proposes projects to all companies in the different subsectors. It is one of the leading R & D & i and technology transfer centers in Spain, with innovation and the development of new products and technologies as its main mission.

From the planning and start-up of projects on new wintering production structures such as the Greendomo, a greenhouse created for the use of productive space, as well as offering local products to society, thus also favoring the Environment. Environment.

The Plant Production area is another of the main actors, within the development of projects at Tecnova. In 2019, work has been done on the formulation of new biostimulants and bioinsecticides, development of tools to improve productivity and, taking the Naturdev project as a reference, a competitive strategy has been launched to improve the sustainability of the agri-food chain and the efficient use of natural resources.

From post-harvest and packaging, the development of models for the prediction and improvement of the sensory quality of the products, conservation studies and fruit processing, or the analysis of combined technologies for the development of fortified foods with modified texture are carried out. , being what Tecnova Chipnature’s own project pursues. Through which we want to take advantage of the production surpluses of avocado and cucumber to create healthy snacks, thus offering added value to the product and reducing food waste.

Tecnova, from its Analytical Services department, promotes the start-up of new processes for the extraction of compounds of interest in different fruits or the use of larvae for the bioconversion of agricultural waste into compounds with high added value, this being the objective of the project Entonatur himself.

With the current demand and the following the rhythm of the companies, from the Industrial Development area, projects of automated systems are framed both in the pre and in the postharvest, use of artificial vision technologies, irrigation systems, designs and implementation of methods based on sensor networks with IoT technology, all with the premise of adapting companies to new trends. One of the projects framed in this theme, R2B2, aims to create an automated system for processing and cutting broccoli with an artificial vision system.

These are just some of the projects in which the Tecnova Technological Center has worked, during 2019, and which have been presented to the Board of Trustees. For the General Director of the center, Mari Carmen Galera, the Tecnova technology center plays a strategic role since it contributes through innovation to improve the competitiveness of agribusiness companies, not only locally but also globally and The result of this are the 59 collaborations it has made with companies based outside of our country. For Tecnova, companies are the engine that moves the economy and they need to be helped and pushed since we have a leading, creative and visionary sector and if we add both producers, marketers and auxiliary industry together with knowledge agents and we row In the same direction, we will become the province of reference worldwide in agro-industrial innovation.