CTAEX Profile 2024

CTAEX PROFILE 2024
CTAEX is a private non-for-profit R&D Centre located in the region of Extremadura, south-west of Spain, founded in 2000 by an association of different and complementary agri-food related entities. Its business-nature ensures the Multi-Actor Approach (MAA) and that newly developed technical solutions meet real life needs. CTAEX is certified as Knowledge Transfer Office (OTC) with number 60 (Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities).


CTAEX tackles various scientific areas of the agri-food value chain, covering sustainable agronomy and food production, biotechnology, and by-products valorisation. 
The Centre brings together, in the same location, experimental farms, food pilot plants, kitchen and tasting rooms, facilities to produce food, food technology and food quality control, tasting rooms, physical chemical and microbiological laboratories, and equipment and process control facilities, so that it is possible to follow the complete agri-food process, “From Farm to Fork” ", carrying out both agricultural and food research.


The Centre has acquired vast expertise in the development of R&D Projects at regional, national, and international level, aiming at improving the competitiveness of the European agri-food sector from a market-oriented approach. 
CTAEX is made up of 70 partners or associates, belonging to the most representative agri-food sectors, assuring the co-creation and sharing of knowledge among them (MAA), and supporting the Quadruple Helix Model of innovation system (Science, policy, industry, and society).
Agroindustry sector embodied in CTAEX includes industrial tomato primary and secondary processing, tobacco production; winery; rice; olive grove, table olives and olive oil; ecological agriculture; livestock and agri-food residues management.

 

WHAT WE OFFER (expertise and skills)
CTAEX´s Agricultural Department has at its disposal green houses and 23 hectares of experimental farms (“ECO” certified among them) indicated for pot trials and large-scale cultivation and equipped with an irrigation general installation in total covering with a 1.000 m2 storage pool and irrigation water supply wells. The R&D lines of this area cover a wide variety of experiences such as development and selection of varieties of any crop, research of new crop techniques, new crops exploration, crop protection and alternative agricultural production (integrated and ecological). Main crops covered by the department are horticultural ones.

Services offered are: 

  • Agronomic studies of varieties.
  • Research into new cultivation techniques: tillage techniques, irrigation...
  • Fertilisation trials
  • Multiplication of plant material
  • Alternative agricultural production: integrated and ecological production
  • Introduction of new crops: adaptation and economic viability.
  • Crop programming: sowing and harvests
  • Weed control trials.
  • Tests of influence/effectiveness of different products on crop development

 

CTAEX´s Food Technology Department is equipped with both: facilities and machinery that make it possible to cover a great variety of industrial food products elaboration processes at pilot scale.
Services offered are:

  • Development of new products: semi-finished products, prepared products, functional and dietetic foods.
  • Diversification of traditional foods
  • Processing technologies: fourth and fifth range, concentration, baking, aseptic, multiple barriers, etc.
  • Packaging and wrapping.
  • Sensory evaluation
  • Other services: shelf-life studies, ingredient evaluation, optimisation of formulations, reconstitution studies, manufacturing of product samples for market research.

 

For its part, CTAEX´s Analytical Department carries out analysis for the agri-food sector of the area. Apart from the external companies´ agri-food matrices analysis, this Dept. addresses R&D lines related to the extraction, isolation and stabilization of chemical interesting compounds found in agricultural and food residues and by-products. This department is highly specialized in agri-food kind of matrixes.
Services of this area are:

  • Physical-chemical analysis of raw materials and agri-food products 
  • Nutritional composition of finished foods
  • Advice on the implementation of analytical equipment and methods of analysis 
  • Plant pathology and in vitro culture 
  • Foliar, agricultural soil, irrigation water and fertiliser analyses. 
  • Obtaining and characterisation of plant extracts and essential oils. 
  • Production and quality control of natural cosmetics 
  • Determination of cannabinoids, steviosides, carotenoids, aroma profiles and volatile compounds.
  • Classical microbiology 
  • Detection of pathogenic microorganisms by means of PCR. 
  • Gene quantification and behaviour in biological processes.
  • Production of Biofertilizers


CTAEX provides project results´ diffusion and dissemination through its Knowledge Transfer Office (OTC). CTAEX has launched several Technological Observatories https://ctaex.com/observactaex/, as platforms to transfer the latest technologies and research results in the field of R&D&I applicable to the agri-food sector.
The use of ICTs and digitalisation processes are the real drivers of development in agriculture and the food industry. The demonstration of 4.0 processes is one of the pillars of the centre, through the implementation of "farm-food-labs".

CTAEX R&D lines are:
The Centre has acquired vast expertise in the development of R&D Projects at regional, national, and international level. CTAEX keeps on working today aiming at improving the competitiveness of the European agri-food sector from a market-oriented approach.
CTAEX belongs to several Platforms such as Technological Platform on vegetal Biotechnology (BIOVEGEN), Technological Platform Food for Life Spain (PTF4L Spain), Spanish Federation of Technological Centres (FEDIT) and Bio-based Industries Consortium (BIC).

Video summary
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSjgVvILAX4

 

ENTITY
Entity: CTAEX
Contact person: Ascensión Ciruelos / Laura Moreno
E-mail: aciruelos@ctaex.com /  lmoreno@ctaex.com 
Website: www.ctaex.com 

 


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