Innovation

Projects

Discover our R&D&I (Research, Development and Innovation) projects

At the Eroski Group we are committed to incorporating R&D&I into the strategic projects of the organization. A company that innovates, a company that grows and evolves.

Mainly in the areas of product innovation, sustainability, logistics, point of sale and ICTs. We do this by interacting with our ecosystem at a regional, national and international level. We collaborate with various technology centres, universities, SMEs, suppliers and consumer groups, attracting innovation to our organization with a view to achieving greater efficacy and efficiency, cost reduction and the fulfilment of our strategic lines in the health and sustainability sphere.

Discover the themes we are developing in the areas of packaging, waste, product, ICTs….

Proyectos

Our projects

2023

Hazitek

Grant program to support business R&D – Hazitek
Action cofinanced by the Basque Government and the European Union through the European Regional Development Fund 2021-2027 (ERDF).

  • DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT OF AN INNOVATIVE AI-BASED SYSTEM FOR THE RETAIL SECTOR Project (ZL-2023/00882 AIDATA)
  • RESEARCH OF NATURAL LANGUAGE PROCESSING TO DEVELOP AN INNOVATIVE SALES MANAGEMENT MODEL Project (ZL-2023/00923 MGATES)
  • aiXia project —Sustainable cognitive space in the Edge-to-Cloud Continuum, Project # ZE-2022/00031
  • RESEARCH OF NATURAL LANGUAGE PROCESSING TO DEVELOP AN INNOVATIVE SALES MANAGEMENT MODEL Project (ZL-2023/00923 MGATES)

PERTE Social Economy

Through the Integral Plan for Boosting the Social Economy call for creating an economic, inclusive, and sustainable fabric within the framework of the Strategic Projects for Recovery and Economic Transformation (PERTE), the MONDRAGON SOSTENIBLE project represents the contribution of the Corporation and its cooperatives to these challenges, working towards building a more economically, socially, and environmentally sustainable world.

9 cooperatives (Embega, Eroski, Mundukide, Ausolan, Ecenarro, Ategi, MIK, Osatu, Mondragon S. Coop.) have accessed the grants to carry out actions between February 2023 and February 2024 in two ways:

  • Draw up diagnostics and assessments about the environmental, social, and gender situation.
  • Develop methodologies and solutions to improve environmental, social, and gender conditions.

The total investment in the project is €3,290,648, of which the MONDRAGON SOSTENIBLE PERTE has financed €968,058.97.

Through the Integral Plan for Boosting the Social Economy call for creating an economic, inclusive, and sustainable fabric within the framework of the Strategic Projects for Recovery and Economic Transformation (PERTE), the MONDRAGON DIGITAL project is aimed at the Promotion of the Digital Transformation and Modernization of the cooperatives.

Through joint technological and training inter-cooperation, actions are being carried out in areas such as Generative AI, Data Platforms and Industrial Big Data, digital twins, cybersecurity, digital customers, intra-logistics, automatic process robotization, business solutions (ERP, MES, CRM, etc.).

In the PERTE 1, which covers actions between February 2023 and October 2024, we have a group of 11 cooperatives: Krean, Sareteknika, Auzo-lagun, MccGraphics, Urola, Ecenarro, Abantail, Loramendi, Osatu-Bexen, M.LinguaAlecop, and Eroski. The budget for this group is €9 million, and the PERTE contributes a grant of €938,190.

In the PERTE 2, which begins in February 2024 and ends in June 2025, we have 4 groups with a total budget of €16.5 million and a grant from the PERTE estimated at €4.3 million.

2023

Promotion of Digital Transformation in the Social Economy

With the support of the Spanish Ministry of Labour and Social Economy, the project “Promotion of Digital Transformation in the Social Economy (Promo-TIC-social)”, is aimed at the Promotion of Digital Transformation and Modernisation of a Grouping of 11 Cooperatives through joint technological and training inter-cooperation, as a way to tackle ICT developments that go beyond the individual capacity of each of them and to tackle the digitisation of management and process areas that have been “orphaned” as a result of the lack of critical mass or the isolation of these cooperatives.

The “Promo-TIC-social” Project has a relevant social and collaborative profile, as can be seen from the following purposes and characteristics of the Project:

  • Cooperation and Intercooperation between the Companies participating in the Project.
  • Digital transformation, we intend to establish a collaborative and joint route towards a reality with cooperative businesses, processes and jobs imbricated with digitalization.
  • Addressing areas of management and processes that have been left “orphaned” as a result of the failure to address their digitalization. The “Promo-TIC-social” project proposes in this area:
    • The aggregation of purchasing capacity so that Cooperatives can be competitive in purchasing activities in the global market.
    • To this end, it will promote, among other concepts, the shared experimentation of the ICT applications envisaged in the Project, so that they can be shared and, in some specific cases, their joint use can be developed.
    • Sharing of learning, training and dissemination of best practices of the ICT applications foreseen in the Project, both between:
      • The Cooperatives participating in the Grouping.
      • Cooperatives intending to implement similar applications.
      • Sharing of information and knowledge with other Social Economy entities.
  • To promote collaborative innovation among the Cooperatives in the Group with the aim of serving as a catalyst for competitiveness and new opportunities for economic and social development.
  • Promoting businesses with a future, in order to evolve towards activities with greater added value and sustained profitability over time through the search for innovative digital solutions that enable the modernization of the Cooperatives participating in the Group.
  • Development of an Intelligent Social Economy, supported on the basis of the development of an economy based on knowledge and innovation.
  • To increase the diversification of the offer of the Cooperatives in the Group with respect to the competition and to increase the image and notoriety of the brand with advanced functionalities that confer technological prestige.
  • Social transformation and Commitment to the solidarity and sustainable development of our environment.
  • Inclusive: promotion of an economy with a high level of employment that has social and territorial cohesion, through the Promotion of “Inclusive Competitiveness”.
MOST RELEVANT FUNCTIONAL INNOVATIONS.

The “Promo-TIC-social” Project provides the following relevant technological innovations:

  • The “Promo-TIC-social” Project proposes its own specific roadmap of intelligent digitalization for the Cooperative Grouping, understood as a process of innovation and change in the organization derived from the integration of digital technologies and services, creating horizontal value networks of strategic scope. To this end, the digitalization roadmap will be developed by the Cooperative Grouping taking into consideration its own digitalization path or trajectory.
  • The “Promo-ICT-social” project will allow for the establishment of an intelligent digitalization strategy of the Cooperative Grouping to Industry 4.0. Indeed, the “Promo-ICT-social” Project will be developed on the basis of the hybrid paradigm (Lean Manufacturing + Digitalization 4.0) as a process of innovation and change in the organization derived from the integration of digital technologies and services, with the aim of increasing flexibility, implementing production to order and providing advanced IT support for the manufacturing area of the Cooperative Grouping.
  • The “Promo-TIC-social” Project is an innovative approach to business transformation through the optimization of management processes and the adoption of intensive digital supports in all areas of our company.
  • The “Promo-TIC-social” Project responds to the challenge of technological and functional integration between heterogeneous systems present in the management, production and logistics systems of the Co-operative Grouping: “Promo-TIC-social” will enable horizontal integration and end-to-end data integration through vertical data integration. In some of the specific cases, such integration developments will be extended to the Industrial Big Data domain.

The project is led by KREAN S. Coop. with the collaboration of ABANTAIL S. Coop, SARETEKNIKA S. Coop, LORAMENDI S. Coop, OSATU – BEXEN CARDIO S. Coop , AUZO LAGUN S. Coop, EROSKI S. Coop, MCCGRAPHICS S. Coop, UROLA S. Coop., MONDRAGÓN LINGUA – ALECOP S. Coop, ALECOP S. Coop and ECENARRO S.COOP.

Collage next generation eu
Entidades colaboradoras

2022

ERDF

In 2022 we participated in various collaborative projects co-funded by the Basque Government and the European Union through the European Regional Development Fund 2021-2027 (ERDF), such as AIXIA (ZE-2022/00031), INSTORE (ZL-2022/00246), NOWASTE (ZL-2021/00717) and EROSKVIA (ZL-2022/00434), focused on the generation of a sustainable cognitive space in the Edge-to-Cloud Continuum, artificial intelligence in inventory management, new technologies for food waste reduction and recovery and digitalization in customer service.

In 2022 and 2023 EROSKI participated in the project NEW CIRCULAR MODEL OF rPET FOR PACKAGING-Bottle4Flex funded by MCIN/AEI /10.13039/501100011033 and by the European Union NextGenerationEU/ PRTR

ToNoWaste

ToNoWaste is a 48-month project in which 21 institutions from 7 countries collaborate to overcome the challenge of sustainable food production and consumption with a multi-stakeholder and interdisciplinary approach that considers not only agronomic, economic, environmental and business model challenges, but also other cross-cutting aspects such as psychology, law and social innovation to fight also against gender and social inequalities. ToNoWaste will inspire market actors to use science- and evidence-based assessment tools and data to make better decisions towards more sustainable food production and consumption patterns. It starts from research on what makes the best decision regarding food waste prevention and reduction actions in the fresh food value chain. It is an open innovation ecosystem designed to leverage previous findings for the identification of social, technical/environmental, economic, political/legal, ethical and demographic drivers and to collaborate with ongoing R&D actions to propose comprehensive solutions.

Follow the social media channels of the project: Twitter and LinkedIn

© 2022 toNoWaste. Funded by the European Union under contract 101059849. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or European Research Executive Agency (REA). Neither the European Union nor REA can be held responsible for them.

INFORMPACK

InformPack is a project co-funded by EIT Food with European Union funds that explores the cross-cultural variations among consumers towards food packaging as related to product choice upon purchase and disposal patterns. The findings will be used to create actions, tools and strategies that will influence public behaviour and will present solutions to enable the transition to a more sustainable European food-packaging ecosystem.

The project started in 2022, will last for 3 years and comprises 6 partners: Aarhus University, VTT, BIOAZUL, MASPEX, the Institute of Animal Reproduction and Food Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences, the University of Reading and EROSKI.

EROSKIVIA

EROSKI S.COOP. has received support from HAZITEK Business R&D Support Programme, co-funded by the Basque Government and the European Union through the European Regional Development Fund 2021-2027 (ERDF), to execute the project EROSKIVIA, “Research and development of innovative Q&A and Lifelong Learning hybridization system for conversational assistants in the travel industry”.

Through this project, EROSKI S.COOP. together with the company BATURA have undertaken the research and development of an innovative backoffice information platform integrated in Whatsapp aimed at improving the customer information system. This R&D project provides a solution that is mature enough to validate it in a real environment prior to distribution.

2021

FOODATA

Action co-funded by: Directorate of Quality and Food Industries of the Basque Government/Wood and Food Chain Digitalisation Aid Programme of the Basque Autonomous Community/Project 00056DIG2021-5-FOODATA

ERDF

We took part in several joint projects co-financed by the Basque Government and the European Union through the European Regional Development Fund 2021-2070 (ERDF), such as Batera (ZL-2021/00569), Instore (ZL-2021/00655) , Retail + (ZL-2021/00717) and OnOff (ZL-2021/00574), focusing on alternative protein, artificial intelligence in inventory management, smart labeling and customer behavior study.

SISTERS

EROSKI participates in the project SISTERS, funded by the EU within the framework of Horizon 2020. SISTERS aims to reduce food loss and waste at the main stages of the food value chain in Europe through innovations targeted to each element of the value chain: new tools for primary producers to promote direct and short chain sales (farmers); new technological innovations in packaging for processors and retailers; and awareness campaigns for retailers and consumers on food loss and waste.

With the support of the European Commission, SISTERS will be a key EU project that will address the problem in a holistic manner, reducing food loss and waste by 27.4% and CO2 emissions by around 20% in the case studies. Within the project, EROSKI leads a work package on the impact of SISTERS innovations at the marketing stage, by demonstrating the advantages of innovative containers and packaging for wholesalers and retailers acceptance, creating guidelines on good practices and a seal of excellence for wholesalers and retailers.

The project started in November 2021, will last for 4 years and comprises 18 partners from 8 different European countries: AITIIP Centro Tecnológico (ES)-project coordinator, Agence BM-services (FR), Riberebro Integral S.A. (ES), PROEXPORT (ES), Munster Technological University (IE), Rebus Labs AG (CH), CARBIOLICE (FR), BIO-MI d.o.o (HR), ITC Packaging s.l. (ES), KTH Royal Institute of Technology (SE), Natureplast SAS (FR), EROSKI (ES), Fondazione Edmund Mach (IT), Laboratori Archa s.r.l. (IT), Enco Consulting s.r.l. (IT), INNOVARUM (ES), Safe Food Advocacy Europe A.S.B.L. (BE) and GAIA BioMaterials (SE).

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This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under Grant Agreement No. 101037796

2020

Straight2Market

The European agrifood innovation project RIS Straight to Market (RIS S2M) aims at helping small and medium-sized local companies, start-ups and scale-ups to bring to mainstream markets food products that are new or highly improved from a nutritional or sustainable point of view. The project has a strong market-oriented aim combined with a commitment to consumers.

It is an initiative co-funded by EIT Food, with the support of the European Institute of Innovation and Technology – EIT, a body of the European Union. EIT Food is Europe’s leading food innovation initiative, working to make the food system more sustainable, healthy and trusted.

The project, which will last for 8 months, involves the development by the company Jakion of a new tomato/Bolognese sauce that will contribute to improving the nutritional and health status of consumers by adding no added sugars and a minimum salt content, in order to reduce the pressure on the Spanish health system. This sauce will have a healthy component and will follow the trend of foods of vegetable origin and clean label (with no additives, preservatives or colourings). The result will be a new tomato sauce that will be much healthier for consumers as compared to those available in the market.

ZeroW

ZeroW is a 12-million-Euro EU project about systemic innovations for zero food waste, funded under the Green Deal Call of the Horizon 2020 Programme.

The project runs from 2022 to 2025 and is implemented in collaboration by 46 stakeholders from 17 countries.

ZeroW will provide credible solutions for significantly reducing FLW, involving all actors in the food system in a collaborative framework, to accelerate the just transition to a social, economic and environmentally sustainable food system for all.

The role of food systems in providing safe, nutritious and affordable foods for all citizens, including vulnerable groups, is embedded and considered in the ZeroW innovative demonstrative solutions.

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This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 programme under grant agreement No 101036388.

FUSILLI

FUSILLI is a Food and Natural Resources project funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme. Over four years, FUSILLI will focus on supporting cities in their transition towards more sustainable food systems. To achieve this goal, FUSILLI combines the expertise of 34 partners from 13 countries, including cities, universities, SMEs, NGOs and industries.

FUSILLI’s core ambition is to overcome barriers for developing and implementing integrated, systemic food policies to support the transition towards sustainable food systems in urban, peri-urban and nearby rural areas. To achieve this goal, FUSILLI places 12 cities in a learning and knowledge sharing network to address the challenges of the food system transformation:

Each city will develop an open innovation ecosystem with the aim of implementing different innovative actions through all the stages of the food chain, including production and processing, distribution and logistics, consumption, food waste as well as governance.

Follow the social media channels of the project: Twitter and LinkedIn

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 101000717.

FOODRUS

FOODRUS is working to tackle food waste by creating resilient food systems across nine European regions. To achieve this, the project will test 23 circular solutions through diverse forms of collaborative innovation, including: technological (blockchain solutions to manage food loss and waste), social (educational materials and citizen science activities to promote sustainable consumption habits), organisational (last mile networks to foster local consumption and donation) and fiscal (new ‘Pay As You Throw’ schemes).

These innovative solutions will empower and engage all actors in local food systems, from farmers to end-consumers as well as everyone in between, to build a multi-actor alliance to tackle the challenge of food loss and waste.

The FOODRUS project comprises 27 partners from 10 different European countries and is coordinated by the University of Deusto.

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This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 101000617.