Background of the project

Despite a difficult economical context these last years in Europe, some sectors like the cosmetic and nutraceutical field are significantly growing. While the European cosmetic sector is estimated at 72 billion €, the nutraceutical sector is also a growing sector as consumers are more concerned about health, population aging and the positive image of natural products. The European food supplement market is expected to increase to 10.3 billion € by 2020. These sectors are characterized by a strong demand from consumers to return to natural products from local resources.

Currently, the majority of natural actives used in cosmetic or nutraceutical formulations are imported to Europe, while a great diversity of resources is present in the North-West Regions, especially crossborder regions such as France, Germany, Belgium, Luxemburg, Niederlande, Irland and the United Kingdom. A large amount of residues in covered areas known for their arboriculture and viticulture sectors are not fully exploited for the sourcing of natural actives and are not used.

The aim of the AgriWasteValue project is to transform agricultural residues from the European North-West regions into bioactive compounds in order to use them in key industrial sectors such as the cosmetic and nutraceutical fields and then in a second phase in the energy, chemical and agricultural fields.  

How does the project work?

Innovative and scalable methods such as environmentally friendly extraction and biochemical treatment will be put in place in order to obtain bio-solvents and biobased chemicals.

The project works towards the creation of sustainable value chains and “zero-waste” biobased operations. The project involved the following steps:

• The production of bioactives via extraction
• A biochemical treatment (which can also be called fermentation) transforming lignocellulosic fractions into biosolvants and biobased chemicals
• The final residues will be used in order to produce biogas and fertilizer
• The transnational cooperation of the project will open up new ways of recycling residues from the agricultural, viticulture and arboriculture sectors.
• The identification and formulation of new cosmetic and nutraceutic products from raw material strengthens the local economy by developing new regional value chains.

Advantages of the project

The project creates a sustainable value chain in the agro-industrial sector and enhances the competitiveness of Europe through the complementarity of its activity sectors and its network of SMEs. It is in line with the concept of circular economy and has social, environmental and economic advantages. Thanks to the creation of this new regional value chain, local producers will be able to find alternatives for an economic valorization of their residues with local enterprises/partners. Later, these enterprises will benefit from local resources for the development of their products.

Social benefits: new jobs, cross-sector industrial interactions for the regions. Another benefit of the project is that it creates an exchange of know-how with local scientific institutes.

Objectives of the project

The project will increase industrial efficiency and sustainability in natural resources use and enable socio-economic benefits in the targeted sectors.

At the end of the project 5 promising molecules will be created and used by the cosmetic and nutraceutical companies, 10 companies will be involved in the value chain and 5 jobs will be created

Acknowledgment

The project’s activities are possible thanks to financial support from the European Regional Development Fund provided by the Interreg North-West Europe Programme.

zurück