Europa finanțează IMM-uri care fac ambalaje, detergenți și ingrediente alimentare din resurse bio-based

European SMEs are not only beneficiaries of the circular bio-based transition, but are becoming some of the companies that move innovation from the lab to the market, the Circular Bio-based Europe Joint Undertaking, CBE JU, says in a publication marking Micro, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises Day. CBE JU-funded projects connect small firms with large companies, universities, research organisations, primary producers, public authorities and end users, helping bio-based solutions to be validated, tested and scaled industrially.

In brief

1. SMEs represent 99% of European businesses and provide jobs to more than 85 million people.

2. Across the CBE JU-funded project portfolio, SMEs represent 38% of participants and receive 35% of funding.

3. Around one quarter of CBE JU-funded projects are coordinated by SMEs.

4. The CBE JU 2025 call, with a budget of €172 million, received 240 eligible proposals requesting more than €1.4 billion.

5. SMEs represented 34% of applicants in the 2025 call, while 45% of applicants were newcomers to the programme.

The circular bio-based economy seeks to replace fossil-based products and materials with solutions derived from biological resources, agricultural residues, food waste, microalgae, plants, biomass, or industrial side streams. For ordinary readers, the issue becomes clear through concrete products: plastic-free packaging, cleaners made from food waste, low-carbon food ingredients, or fish feed produced from forest residues.

CBE JU says SMEs are essential to this transition because they bring specialised technologies, niche expertise, and entrepreneurial capacity. They can develop fast solutions close to local and regional markets, but need partners, financing, demonstration facilities, and access to value chains to move from prototype to industrial production.

This is the role of European projects financed by CBE JU. They create consortia in which small firms can work with larger actors to validate technologies, test business models, and demonstrate solutions at larger scale. Instead of a small company trying alone to build a market, the programme introduces it into a European ecosystem of research, industry, and end users.

The data presented by CBE JU show that SMEs are not marginal in these projects. They represent 38% of participants in the funded portfolio and receive 35% of the funding. Around one quarter of projects are coordinated by SMEs, showing that small firms are not only technical partners, but also take leadership roles in complex European innovation projects.

Nicolò Giacomuzzi-Moore, Executive Director of CBE JU, says the strong SME interest confirms that the funding responds to real needs for innovation, growth, and access to collaborative European value chains.

“The strong SME interest in CBE JU calls confirms that CBE JU funding continues to meet their needs for innovation, growth and access to collaborative European value chains,” Giacomuzzi-Moore said.

The CBE JU 2025 call confirms the trend. With a budget of €172 million, the call received 240 eligible proposals requesting more than €1.4 billion in total funding. SMEs represented 34% of all applicants.

Another important element is the entry of new organisations into the ecosystem. According to CBE JU, 45% of applicants in the 2025 call were newcomers to the programme, predominantly from industry and SMEs. For the programme, this shows that the circular bio-based field is no longer limited to its established community, but attracts firms entering this economy for the first time.

The examples presented by CBE JU show what it means in practice to turn bio-based innovation into products. BIOWRAP, coordinated by German SME Papair GmbH, is developing a 100% paper-based alternative to plastic bubble wrap used in protective packaging. The project is building a production facility for packaging based on cellulose and nanocellulose fibre bonding, aiming to replace synthetic adhesives and support more circular packaging value chains.

Christopher Feist, CEO at Papair, says European support helps the company move its technology from an existing market product to industrial production.

“At Papair, we want plastic protective packaging to become the exception in Europe, not the norm,” Feist said. He added that CBE JU support through BIOWRAP gives the company the capital and partners needed to scale faster than it could alone.

Another example is WASTE2FUNC, with AmphiStar’s participation. The project created new value chains to convert agricultural and industrial food waste into lactic acid and microbial biosurfactants for personal care and cleaning products. One concrete result was the launch of Ecover multi-surface and toilet cleaners made from food waste and sold in Delhaize supermarkets in Belgium.

This example matters because it shows how underused waste streams can become functional ingredients for everyday products. For consumers, the bio-based transition is no longer only an industrial promise, but can appear as a cleaning product on a supermarket shelf.

CleanAlgae2Value, coordinated by Greek SME Solmeyea, is developing a scalable microalgae biorefinery process to produce food-grade, carbon-negative ingredients, including protein isolates, oils, natural pigments, and starch. The project will validate these ingredients in food and bio-based packaging prototypes.

Vasilis Stenos, Co-Founder and CEO at Solmeyea, says CBE JU support allows the company to move beyond laboratory and pilot-scale innovation and accelerate industrial validation.

“Through CleanAlgae2Value, we aim to demonstrate how European biotechnology can transform CO₂ and microalgae into functional ingredients such as proteins, oils, pigments and starch,” Stenos said. He linked the project to the broader objective of helping decarbonise food production.

SUSTAINEXT, coordinated by Spanish SME NATAC, is transforming an existing facility in Hervás, Extremadura, into a biorefinery for plant-based extracts and functional ingredients. The plant, due to be inaugurated in autumn 2026, is designed to process 20,000 tonnes of agricultural side streams and medicinal and aromatic plants per year.

José María Pinilla, Head of Innovation at NATAC and SUSTAINEXT Project Coordinator, says CBE JU support provides not only funding, but also a European seal of excellence that helps the company attract private investment. He also underlines the regional dimension of the project: a biorefinery in a rural town in Extremadura can create jobs, opportunities for farmers, and a new innovation hub.

SynoProtein, coordinated by Norwegian SME WAI Environmental Solutions, is developing a carbon-negative process that converts forest residues into single-cell proteins for fish feed, while also producing biochar for animal feed. The project has already optimised lab-scale processes close to target performance and completed pre-engineering designs for a future full-scale plant.

These projects show how the bio-based economy can link different goals: waste reduction, replacement of fossil-based materials, European competitiveness, lower-emission products, and regional development. In many cases, the circular transition does not happen through a single spectacular technology, but through the transformation of neglected resource streams into ingredients, packaging, or commercial products.

For SMEs, the major difficulty remains the move from innovation to market. A technology may work in the lab, but it needs capital, industrial partners, testing, demonstration, and access to customers to become bankable. CBE JU presents its model as a way to reduce this gap through European collaboration.

For the European Union, the message is also about competitiveness. The circular bio-based transition can support green objectives, but also industry, biotechnology, agriculture, and regional value chains. At a time when Europe is discussing reduced dependencies, stronger competitiveness, and better use of innovation, SMEs become practical actors of this change.

The CBE JU publication presents these examples on Micro, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises Day and underlines that small businesses can have a big impact on Europe’s circular bio-based future. Beyond the celebratory message, the data point to an economic issue: without SMEs, many bio-based solutions would remain in research and would not reach industrial scale or consumers’ daily lives.

The Circular Bio-based Europe Joint Undertaking is a European partnership supporting innovation projects in the circular bio-based economy. The publication “Small business, big impact: SMEs driving Europe’s circular bio-based transition” was published on 24 June 2026, ahead of Micro, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises Day, marked on 27 June.