News, Projects

BIONetZero

A close up of a logo AI-generated content may be incorrect.BIONetZero is a European initiative supporting the transition of agrifood and energy-intensive industries towards greener, more digital, and resilient production models. The project focuses on accelerating the adoption of biosolutions and advanced technologies that enable companies to reduce dependency on critical materials, strengthen supply chains, and work towards net-zero industrial transformation. Building Capacity and Innovation Over the course of the project, more than 100 SMEs will be supported in developing, validating, and scaling their innovative biosolutions. Participating companies will gain access to: Expert guidance and tailored mentoring Networking and matchmaking opportunities Site visits, innovation events, and investment sessions Connections with technology providers and investors Each SME will work with a dedicated Key Account Manager (KAM) who will help identify needs, connect them with relevant partners, and guide them through innovation and market-readiness pathways. Financial Support for SMEs A strong financial support scheme lies at the heart of BIONetZero. SMEs can apply for different types of grants depending on their maturity stage: Ideation: €3,500 for networking and early-stage exploration Validation & Development: €15,000 for testing and product validation Commercialisation: €40,000 for further development and market adaptation Internationalisation: €5,000 to support market entry beyond the EU Investors will be involved throughout the selection and development phases to ensure feasibility, scalability, and long-term impact. Driving a Net-Zero Bioeconomy By bringing together SMEs, experts, investors, and innovation ecosystems, BIONetZero strengthens Europe’s capability to develop competitive and sustainable biosolutions. The project contributes to a future where bio-based technologies reduce environmental impact, improve industrial resilience, and secure Europe’s strategic autonomy in key value chains.
Biosolutions for net-zero technologies for the agrifood and energy intensive industry ecosystems  
Duration
10/2025 – 9/2028 (36 months)
Funding authority
EISMEA
Projects

Value4Pack Regional Workshop

🌟 Exciting Alert! 🌟

We are delighted to share the success of the recent Value4Pack Regional Workshop hosted by the Lithuanian Food Exporters Association (LITMEA) in the city of Kaunas! 🇱🇹 Under the umbrella of the Value4Pack project funded by the European Union (Grant Agreement No. 101132867), this workshop was an important step towards strengthening the European food packaging value chain. 🌍

📅 On 1 March 2024, stakeholders from different sectors came together to discuss strategies to strengthen the resilience and competitiveness of our food packaging industry. Through careful planning and engagement efforts, we witnessed a diverse turnout of 14 participants, each bringing unique expertise to the table. 💼

Here are some of the key takeaways from the workshop:

1️⃣ Sharing knowledge on sustainable packaging solutions.
2️⃣ Collaborative research and development.
3️⃣ Resource Optimisation and Circular Economy.
4️⃣ Technology transfer and capacity building.
5️⃣ Policy Advocacy.

These results pave the way for transformative cooperation and innovation in the European food packaging landscape! 🌱💡 Let’s continue to work together towards a greener, more resilient future. 💪

Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or EISMEA. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them. 🌐

Projects

How to develop the regional value chains analysis

We continued our meeting with a workshop on how to develop the regional value chains analysis managed by our partners and work package leaders Jussi Lahtinen and Luk Palmen

And closed today’s agenda with a study visit at CBIMO in West Pomeranian University of Technology in Szczecin to discover the packaging research in the area. Thank you Prof. Artur Bartkowiak and team for such an interesting tour, inputs and discussions!

Now let’s cook a bit👩‍🍳👨‍🍳😋

SustainableFoodPackaging Value4Pack CollaborationForChange EISMEA I3Instrument

NATUREEF Association
Pack4Food
Flanders’ FOOD
Packaging Cluster
Lithuanian food exporters association (LitMEA)
Valorial, le réseau innovation agri-agro
Agrifood Clust-ER
Alma Mater Studiorum – Università di Bologna
DBH Group
Omnipack Packaging Technology Cluster
Gospodarska zbornica Slovenije
CLIC Innovation Oy
Packbridge
Galicia Food Cluster
POLYMERIS
LATVIJAS PARTIKAS UZNEMUMU FEDERACIJA

Projects

First General Assembly

Second and last day of our kick-off meeting. Today we discussed all the work packages activities and had our first General Assembly.

Now is time to go back home and implement all we have planned 😊 stay tuned to see what’s to come!

SustainableFoodPackaging Value4Pack CollaborationForChange EISMEA I3Instrument

NATUREEF Association
Pack4Food
Flanders’ FOOD
Packaging Cluster
Lithuanian food exporters association (LitMEA)
Valorial, le réseau innovation agri-agro
Agrifood Clust-ER
Alma Mater Studiorum – Università di Bologna
DBH Group
Omnipack Packaging Technology Cluster
Gospodarska zbornica Slovenije
CLIC Innovation Oy
Packbridge
Galicia Food Cluster
POLYMERIS
LATVIJAS PARTIKAS UZNEMUMU FEDERACIJA

Projects

Value4Pack

Value4Pack. Bridging investment opportunities to achieve a resilient European food packaging value chain

I3 PROJECT

Resilient European food packaging value chain

Packaging has a crucial role in the food supply chain as it is an essential element to address the challenges of sustainable food consumption. Food packaging has the ability to reduce food waste by protecting and preserving the quality and safety of food products throughout the desired shelf-life.

The EU Green Deal sets important goals to further advance the sustainable transition of the food packaging value chain, encompassing:

• Ensuring that all packaging in the EU market is reusable or recyclable in an economically viable manner by 2030;

• Defining measures to reduce packaging waste;

• Promoting the incorporating of recycled content in packaging materials.

While the proposed European targets and measures are still under debate, the focus is clear. The European food packaging value chain needs to transition to a resilient circular economy centred on prevention (refuse), reduce, recycling and reuse of food packaging materials. To achieve this transition, investments and collaborative efforts among industrial stakeholders in the food packaging value chain, especially small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), are essential!

Goal
Value4Pack aims to strengthen interregional collaborations, support innovation, and bridge gaps between different stakeholders by creating an inclusive ecosystem and providing targeted assistance, to boost innovation and investment capacity in the European food packaging value chain. Value4Pack is an Interregional Innovation Investment (I3) project, originating from the European S3 Partnership Food Packaging.

Collaboration is key
By facilitating interregional cooperation, Value4Pack will increase the capacity for companies in the food packaging value chain, to engage in interregional innovation projects and initiatives, develop new business ideas, and make concrete interregional innovation investments for validated solutions that meet their needs.

Core activities
To reach this goal, the core-activities of Value4Pack are:

  • Connect and align the actors along the European food packaging value chain, inducing a harmonized understanding and vision of food packaging. To create awareness among stakeholders about each other’s needs, and to translate their needs to challenges for their industry.
  • Perform an interregional value chain analysis to identify the innovation gaps in the entire food packaging value chain and the food packaging innovators. Facilitating cross-fertilization of food packaging innovations, know-how and best practices between regions through matchmaking and networking events, to close the innovation gaps.
  • Support regional stakeholders, in particular SMEs, and facilitate the further elaboration of interregional investment projects via interregional matchmaking and knowledge exchange, workshops for stakeholders, etc.
  • Development of regional roadmaps indicating short, medium and long-term innovation/investment trajectories for the food packaging value chain.
  • Development of a joint-action plan for interregional investments in the food packaging value chain, engaging stakeholders (in particular SMEs).

Moreover, through its bottom-up approach, Value4Pack will also support regional authorities in the entrepreneurial discovery process for the S3 priorities linked to food packaging, to design evidence-based and targeted policy interventions in the long-term.

Partners/regions

DISCLAIMER

Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or EISMEA. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.

Projects

New project – Value4Pack

FIRST PROJECT PROPOSAL OF THE EUROPEAN S3 PARTNERSHIP FOOD PACKAGING

Great news! Value4Pack – the FIRST project proposal of theEuropean S3 Partnership Food Packaging is approved! Value4Pack is an Interregional Innovation Investment (I3) project aiming to strengthen the capacity, competitiveness and resilience of stakeholders in the European food packaging value chain, and their ability to address societal, environmental and economic challenges.

To achieve the current (and upcoming) European targets by 2030, industrial stakeholders, in particular SMEs, have a strong need for innovation and investment throughout the entire food packaging value chain, in which interregional cross-sector collaboration is essential.

GOAL OF VALUE4PACK

Value4Pack aims to boost innovation and investment capacity in the European food packaging value chain by building an interregional resilient ecosystem between its relevant penta-helix actors (i.e. industrial stakeholders – research institutes – investors – regional authorities – consumers and NGOs). By facilitating interregional cooperation, Value4Pack will increase the capacity for companies in the food packaging value chain, to engage in interregional innovation projects and initiatives, develop new business ideas, and make concrete interregional innovation investments for validated solutions that meet their needs.

PROJECT CONSORTIUM

Value4Pack is coordinated by Natureef Association with Pack4Food as co-lead, and includes 15 organisations from 11 European countries representing 29 regions.

Projects

AGRIFOODX5.0 PARTNERS MEETING DURING RIGA FOOD 2023

AGRIFOODX5.0 PARTNERS MEETING DURING RIGA FOOD 2023

AgrifoodX5.0 consortium partners had its official meeting during Riga Food 2023. Two-day agenda included Riga Food 2023 fair visit, partner meeting and meeting colleagues from Business Network International (BNI Latvija)
Edgars Zalitis, Regional Director at BNI Latvia, CEO at Smart Charcoal and Laura Valtere, Partner at Gateway & Partners and Vice President at BNI Latvia.

Aim of the meeting with BNI Latvija representatives was to exchange experience on different topics. During discussion with BNI Latvija, Edgars Zalitis and Laura Valtere explained core activities of BNI Latvija, services and the main key points that make BNI Latvija different from other networking organizations (discipline – mandatory meeting attendance, measurable KPIs, closed group, specific selection criteria including management level, industries that non-overlapping (excluded competition) etc).

Edgars Zalitis and Laura Valtere shared what works best, what is the motivation and benefits of entrepreneurs to devote time and financial resources to BNI Latvija. BNI works under same principles as BNI Global, however, Baltics has a very active groups which developed a new product ­– a specific group devoted to export topic. This experience is something new which possibly will be implemented in other countries.

We learned how the integration of digitalization and creative technologies has revolutionized BNI Latvija approach. It’s often the small, yet crucial details that make all the difference, and BNI Latvija has certainly harnessed this philosophy to their advantage. One remarkable aspect we uncovered was their innovative use of gamification methods to encourage more active participation and collaboration among their members. Additionally, they’ve embraced the power of digital tools to track performance and gauge the impact of their efforts. This data-driven approach not only provides valuable insights but also ensures that every action taken within the network is purposeful and effective, recognizing that creativity and digitalization are the cornerstones of Industry 5.0.

Closing the meeting both parties discussed possible cooperation and touchpoints in the future for example to collaborate in European Cluster Collaboration Platform (ECCP) program ClusterExchange.

Text prepared by and contact details Anna Rozenfelde, +371 29918829, annarozenfelde@gmail.com

Projects

Food sector study visit to Galicia – Spain

If you are representative of:
– European food clusters
– European tech centres in the food sector or
– Food companies interested in establishing collaborations with Galicia,

AgrifoodX5.0 is inviting you to Food sector study visit to Galicia, Spain from 14-16th of June, 2023!

More information about opportunity and application below.

#opportunity #food #clusterexchange #knowledgeexchange #agrifood#spain #galicia #galiciaregion #june #exploration