The University of Parma is one of the oldest universities in Italy. Today it hosts about 25,000 students and about 900 permanent teaching and research staff. It is currently organized in 9 different departments. The Chemistry Group participating in the project is based at the Department of Food and Drug, and it is composed by bioorganic and food chemists. The group has a long standing experience in many research areas of biomass characterization, food and feed chemistry, food waste valorization.

Specific areas of expertise include gross characterization of food-derived byproducts and biomass for valorization, protein extraction and characterization in food by electrophoresis and mass spectrometry, allergen determination in foods, characterization of free and proteic amino acids by chromatographic techniques, study of the composition of food-derived peptide fractions by chromatography and mass spectrometry, biomass recovery through enzymatic reactions, study of proteolysis in food products, implementation of simulated gastrointestinal digestion protocols for proteins, study of biofunctional activities of peptides and proteins, new methods for mycotoxin determination in food.