The Pilot Plants

Agrimax biorefineries (Pilot Plants)

After five years, Agrimax, the Bio-Based Industries Joint Undertaking project, which has built two ground-breaking pilot plant facilities in Spain and Italy has come to an end. The project has successfully demonstrated how unavoidable crop and food-processing waste can be turned into multiple, high-value bio-based products for the food-ingredients, food-packaging and farming sectors.

From farmers to consumers, vast amounts of agricultural and food waste are being generated throughout the whole supply chain. Approximately one third of all food produced globally is wasted every year. In Europe alone, around 90 million tonnes of food waste and 700 million tonnes of agricultural waste are generated annually.

The Italian pilot plant is based at family-run farm, Chiesa Virginio EC in the North of Italy and is processing waste from tomatoes and cereals to produce bio-based compounds such as lycopene, ferulic acid, cutin, and hydrocompost. The Spanish pilot plant, based at fruit processing company Indulleida, does the same for olive, tomato, cereal and potato waste to produce polyphenols, fibres, proteins and aromas.

In addition to developing innovative processes, the project developed an online stakeholder platform to coordinate and manage the provision of regional waste feedstocks at the pilot plants. This, and the fact that the plants are designed to accept multiple feedstocks from different crops, will help overcome seasonal and local fluctuations and ensure that the pilot plants run throughout the year. For the long-term operation of the pilot plants, the project proposed a tailored co-operatively owned business model for each of the pilot plants.

View the range of products the project has developed.

Contact details 

Spanish Pilot Plant, Indulleida S.A., indulleida@indulleida.com

Italian Pilot Plant , Chiesa Virginio EC, marco.bertolini@chiesavirginio.it