The opportunity
Every harvest leaves something valuable behind
Wine is made from grapes, but not all of the grape ends up in the bottle. After pressing, the skins, seeds and stalks (the pomace) typically make up around a fifth of the fruit. It is anything but waste: it yields natural food colour (anthocyanins), polyphenol extracts for nutraceuticals and cosmetics, grape-seed oil, fibre and flours, feed, and spirits.
Pomace arrives in a six-to-eight-week glut, wet and perishable, and usually leaves the winery on terms set at the last minute. Ingredient producers cannot plan for it. They do not know how much will arrive, when, or how each batch was handled. So most pomace goes to field spreading or energy, and very little reaches higher-value ingredients.
How it works
From vineyard to by-product, in one trusted chain
01
Know the supply base
A register of the winery’s vineyard blocks and varieties, with every weighed grape delivery recorded.
02
A passport for every batch
At the press, each batch gets an identity. Two phone entries by cellar staff record pressing, storage, a visual mould check and hand-over. Sulphite additions come from the cellar register.
03
Checked at the press, not at the gate
Each batch is checked against the buyer’s own on-site acceptance criteria when it is formed. A batch that fails is known before anyone drives to collect it.
04
A weekly volume outlook
The winery’s planned intake is multiplied by its measured pressing ratios to give weekly pomace volumes by type, updated with actual intake. Buyers see the ratios behind every figure.
05
Hand-over with a closed balance
Dispatch weight at the winery is closed against the buyer’s weighbridge at receipt, and the buyer’s laboratory results are written back to the batch. Batches go first to ingredient producers. Feed and distillation follow, and energy or compost only when nothing better is possible.
Verifiable by design
Trust you can check, not just take on faith
What sets TRUSTCHAIN apart is that its records can be verified independently.
Mass balance done properly
Following ISO 22095, every weighed tonne is tracked from press to buyer. A claim can never exceed what went in.
A tamper-evident record
Key events are time-stamped and sealed, so entries cannot be quietly changed or backdated.
Evidence for by-product status
Each batch carries the evidence items for the four EU conditions that make pomace a by-product rather than waste. The legal decision stays with the holder and the authorities. The passport is an evidence record, not a certification.
Privacy by design
Sensitive business details are kept confidential behind cryptographic seals. Published figures are aggregated so that no individual winery can be identified, and no prices are stored centrally.
Proven at the vineyard
Growers can back up their deliveries with a verified harvest capture on their phone, tied to the parcel it came from.
Who benefits
Value at every link of the chain
Wineries and cooperatives
Pomace becomes a raw material sold on agreed terms instead of a last-minute disposal. Each batch leaves with a complete record for two phone entries.
Growers
Recognition for the vineyards they manage, and proof of where their grapes went.
Ingredient producers
Plannable, documented feedstock, with acceptance checked at the press, so drying and processing capacity can be sized before the crush.
Inspectors and auditors
Read-only, time-limited access to the records they need, with every access logged.
The region
More Puglian pomace reaching food, nutraceutical and cosmetic ingredients instead of field spreading or energy.
Built for Puglia, ready for Europe
Starting in one of Europe’s great wine regions
TRUSTCHAIN Pomace starts in Puglia, with its mix of cooperatives, private estates and traditional growing systems. It is designed to scale across Italy and the EU. An interactive map of Europe’s farmland will show provenance and how the model can be repeated in other regions.
Where we are
Demonstrated on real pressings
October 2026: first real pressings. The passport and mass-balance ledger ran on real pressings at a winery in northern Puglia, operated by the winery’s own cellar staff.
2027: a full vintage with ingredient producers. The service runs through the whole 2027 harvest with ingredient buyers, adding the acceptance check at the press and the weekly volume outlook.
Built on research. TRUSTCHAIN Pomace builds on CERES, developed under TruBlo (Horizon 2020) by MIICT with the University of Foggia and AgriSmarter, and licensed to Equinox Advisory.