Wine Waste Management: Model of Social Enterprise in The Wine Region of Nišava-South Morava

Abstract

According to the European Commission, circular economy not only means a more efficient use of
resources, but also a wide range of possibilities for the development of entrepreneurship that would create 3 million
jobs by 2030. The European Commission has adopted a new economy package in 2014 (up to 6 Billion EUR) to
support businesses in their transition to a circular economy. The use of agro waste for value-added products, on the
one hand brings an increase in gross domestic product, but on the other contributes to the protection of the
environment. The winemaking leads to the generation of large quantities of grape waste (around 5-9 million tons per
year, worldwide), which considerably increase the chemical and biochemical oxygen demand due to a high pollution
load with detrimental effects on the flora and fauna. The practice of developed countries shows that wine waste could
be used to obtain a large number of new products that may have the added usage and market value. In this paper
explain how the wine processing waste can be a source of ideas for the creation of small social enterprise with 5
employees from rural areas of South Serbia. For testing the cost-effectiveness of this business model were taken
wineries (14 total) from Nišava-South Morava wine region, which produce up to 600 000 liters of wine per year.
According to FAO (2008) in the process of wine production, 20% of the waste is generated. This waste, usually is
wine pomace consists of skins, stems and seeds. In the special technological process of cold pressing the seeds
produced biological oil, which can have a specific application in the food and pharmaceutical industries. The market
price of this oil, depending on the purity, quality and the manufacturer ranges from 6 to 40 EUR/100 mL. As for
example in Croatia is 12 EUR/100 mL.