When people think about innovation in the food industry, they often picture new products appearing on supermarket shelves. For Marco Ferreira, Head of Quality at Brasmar Group, however, true innovation goes far beyond the final product. It lies in creating value from what is left behind, embracing circularity throughout production processes, and sharing knowledge between companies and research centres.
It was within this context that Brasmar's collaboration with CBQF, particularly with Professor Manuela Pintado and the CROSSPATHS project, began. The initiative seeks to build meaningful bridges between scientific research and the real needs of industry.
Brasmar Group: global scale, local challenges
Today, Brasmar Group is one of the leading companies in the seafood industry, operating three production facilities in Portugal, four in Spain, and one in Norway, while maintaining commercial and logistics operations in the United States, Brazil, the United Kingdom, France, and Italy. Such an extensive international footprint presents unique research, development and innovation (R&D&I) challenges.
Each production unit has its own dedicated research and development team. According to Marco Ferreira, their work is built around three main pillars: sustainability and seafood valorisation, the development of innovative solutions, including both products and processes, and the efficiency and robustness of industrial operations.
"R&D often ends up being associated exclusively with product development, but we want it to be much broader. Product development is naturally part of it, but we also want to be strongly supported by innovation in a much wider sense," he explains.
Seafood by-products: unlocking hidden value
One of the central themes of the conversation is the valorisation of seafood by-products, an area in which Brasmar is investing increasing effort and which Marco Ferreira describes as "a strategic area for Brasmar."
Fish skin, cod bones, octopus beaks, fish trimmings and soak water each possess distinct characteristics that first need to be classified and understood before identifying their most valuable applications. Those applications can extend far beyond the traditional production of fishmeal.
"We know there is significant value in what are currently considered our by-products. We have been exploring opportunities ranging from fertiliser production to cosmetics, the footwear industry and even the automotive sector," explains Marco Ferreira. The principles of the circular economy are clearly at work here, with the output of one process becoming the input for another industry, generating value where waste once existed.
One practical example already implemented is the recovery of thermal energy from soak water. The low temperature required to preserve seafood quality during the soaking process is subsequently recovered through heat exchange and used to power the office air-conditioning system.
"But we really want to go much further than that. This is only one example within a single process," Marco Ferreira acknowledges.
Academia and Industry: Where the Three Pillars Meet
For Marco Ferreira, collaboration with research institutions is essential.
His conviction is based on the idea that innovation truly happens when scientific knowledge is combined with industrial reality and market needs. These are the three pillars that, in his view, must be aligned if any research project is to produce genuinely useful outcomes.
Brasmar has established partnerships with several academic institutions, including the Universidade Católica Portuguesa, through CBQF, ICBAS, the University of León and the University of La Rioja in Spain, as well as research centres in Norway.
Marco Ferreira highlights the collaboration with CBQF researchers as an example of a successful partnership precisely because they share a common vision that extends well beyond laboratory research.
"Professor Manuela Pintado brings the industry's perspective into academia. Those who are not in close contact with industry often have little understanding of what companies actually need, what their real challenges are, and what constraints they face," he observes.
Timelines and expectations
Collaboration is not without its challenges. Marco Ferreira openly identifies one of the biggest obstacles to successful partnerships between industry and academia: aligning timelines and expectations.
"The difficulty of aligning everyone's expectations is real. We constantly challenge ourselves, and sometimes that creates frustration. We know these things take time, but when you can already see the destination ahead, waiting is difficult."
This tension between the fast pace of business and the longer timescales required for scientific research remains one of the greatest challenges within innovation ecosystems. According to Marco Ferreira, the solution lies in designing projects from the outset that successfully integrate research, industrial reality and market requirements.
CROSSPATHS: building the missing bridge
It is within this context that the CROSSPATHS project becomes particularly relevant. The initiative strengthens the connection between research and industry through workshops, researcher exchanges between different countries, and the creation of collaborative networks involving industrial partners and research organisations.
For Marco Ferreira, CROSSPATHS represents exactly the type of model that makes sense because, as he explains, it "promotes the identification of companies' real needs and fosters future synergies between research and industry, which are not always as closely connected as they should be."
The project has already organised co-creation workshops in Portugal, Estonia and Poland, bringing together academia, industry, governmental and non-governmental organisations from the host countries, while engaging local stakeholders alongside the international consortium.
The Ideal Collaboration Model: Integration, Agility and Strategic Vision
When asked what an ideal model of collaboration with academia would look like, Marco Ferreira is unequivocal. Rather than isolated projects, Brasmar seeks long-term partnerships focused on developing practical solutions, particularly in the valorisation of seafood by-products, an area with enormous potential where academia can provide significant added value.
"Many organisations immediately think about the environment when they talk about sustainability. But reducing sustainability to its environmental dimension alone is an incomplete view. Sustainability goes far beyond environmental issues," he emphasises.
Marco Ferreira also points to the profound transformation currently taking place across the food sector. Consumers are becoming increasingly demanding, concerns around health and sustainability continue to grow, pressure on natural resources is intensifying, and artificial intelligence is reshaping research and analytical processes.
All of these factors require companies to become more agile, more resilient and more innovative, and this is precisely where academia can make a meaningful difference.
"The evolution of the sector is pushing us to accelerate the transformation taking place across the food industry. Within this model, interaction with academia fits perfectly because it brings valuable know-how that can help organisations become more agile, more resilient and more innovative," concludes Marco Ferreira.