Industry Nordic
Due to the increasing and aging population, the rise in health and environmental awareness of consumers, non-wood forest products (NWFP) business is becoming a mega trend globally.
Branch: Chemistry and bioeconomy
Duration: 01.05.2015 – 30.04.2018
Region: International
Financed by: European Union Interreg Botnia Atlantica, European Regional Development Fund, Regional Council of Ostrobothnia
Further information: Leena Favén, +358 44 7250 273, leena.faven@centria.fi
Project Manager: Leena Favén
Background
Due to the increasing and aging population, the rise in health and environmental awareness of consumers, non-wood forest products (NWFP) business is becoming a mega trend globally. In Europe the value of non- wood forest products business is estimated to be around 2- 4 billion € annually.
According to the Finnish bio economy strategy (2014) the value of bio economy should grow from 60 billion € to 100 billion € by 2025. Non- wood forest products, which include berries, mushrooms, herbs and special non-wood forest products like pine bark, sap and resin or lichen, are all parts of the bio economy. The increasing demand for health products manufactured from Nordic pure natural biomass is estimated to speed up the growth of non-wood forest products business.
The EU 2020 strategy promotes smart and sustainable growth. The development of Nordic NWFP such as health foods and bio based cosmetics create job opportunities in rural areas since manufacturing of these products is economically most efficient close to forests and farmlands.
The overall objective of the project is to enhance the selected Nordic berry business development.
The production of final products, e.g. cosmetics require a long chain of production steps, from collection, pretreatment to a final elaboration of a product. One crucial step is the extraction of the valuable fractions from the raw material. The objective here is to use and evaluate modern, ´green´ extractions methods as alternatives to the conventional, usually solvent based ones.
Industrial processes often requires a monitoring of the process which usually is laboratory analysis. One objective is therefore to at first investigate the need and applicability for on/at line monitoring and apply the methods in the production process.
The aim is to improve the efficiency of sustainable industrial scale manufacturing of selected Nordic berries by optimizing pilot and lab scale green extraction technologies. The aim is also to improve intermediate product manufacturing which would enable SME´s to use intermediate products in the development of final products like super food, cosmetics and hygiene products.
IndustryNordic was selected as one of the six finalists in the Arctic Award competition which was open to projects funded by the NPA, NPP, interreg Botnia-Atlantica, interreg Nord, Kolarctic programs. The awards ceremony will take place in Luleå Sweden on the 15th of November 2017 as part of the Interreg Nord Annual Conference.The award has been designed to highlight exceptional projects focusing on topics of particular relevance to the Arctic area. According to the evaluation committee the competition has been extremely well received by projects funded by all participating programmes.
The Judging Panel selected the following 6 finalists:
Category 1: Overcoming critical mass:
Industry Nordic – Interreg Botnia – Atlantica
Visit Arctic Europe – Interreg NORD
WiRMa – Interreg NORD
Category 2: Sustainable use of resources:
Transalgae – Interreg Botnia- Atlantica 2014- 2020
WAX – Interreg NORD 2014- 2020
URCHIN – Interreg NPA 2014- 2020
Contact
Centria University of Applied Sciences
Project Manager Leena Favén
Tel. +358 44 7250 273
leena.faven@centria.fi
Novia University of Applied Sciences
Tom Lillhonga
Tel. +358 50 5489 214
tom.lillhonga@novia.fi
Sveriges lantbruksuniversitet SLU
Josefina Nyström
Tel. +46 7255 12381
josefina.nystrom@slu.se
Åsele Näringslivsstiftelse
Robert Borgén
Tel.+46 70 271 5932
robert.borgen@asele.se
