Summary:
Potato juice from the potato processing industry will serve as feedstock for chemical production through the Potato Juice to Fatty Acids for New Bio-based Value-Chains in Europe (PACE) project. The four-year initiative is centred on Royal Avebe’s existing facility in the Netherlands.
PACE will combine fermentation with microbial chain elongation to produce medium-chain fatty acids. These compounds can be used as platform chemicals or ingredients in several industrial applications and could provide alternatives to fatty acids derived from fossil resources or palm oil.
Instead of building a new production site, the consortium will modify and expand existing infrastructure. The project is designed to demonstrate whether locally available potato juice side-streams can support the production of purified fatty acids at industrial scale.
Consortium partners will test the bio-based compounds in flavour and fragrance ingredients, surfactants, home care detergents and animal health supplements. They will also evaluate the process in terms of sustainability, circular resource use and market uptake, while examining how the model could be replicated at other European industrial sites.
— Press Release —
Industrializing Circular Chemistry: PACE launches Europe’s first full-scale retrofitted biorefinery to transform potato juice into sustainable bio-based chemicals
A new European flagship project is set to demonstrate at industrial scale, how an underutilized side-stream from the potato processing industry can become a valuable source of sustainable chemicals.
PACE (Potato Juice to Fatty Acids for New Bio-based Value-Chains in Europe) will demonstrate a first-of-its-kind flagship biorefinery by retrofitting part of Royal Avebe’s existing production facility. Using advanced fermentation and microbial chain elongation, the facility will convert potato juice side-streams into valuable biobased medium-chain fatty acids (MCFAs), for applications across the chemical industry.
The project represents an important step toward reducing Europe’s dependency on fossil and palm oil-based chemistry while strengthening local, circular value chains. By integrating circular solutions into existing industrial infrastructure, PACE demonstrates how industrial side-streams can be transformed into scalable and commercially relevant chemical building blocks.
Kick-off meeting
The kick-off meeting took place on 17 June 2026 in Amsterdam. The meeting marked the official start of the four-year project and brought together representatives from all consortium partners to align on objectives, implementation activities and next steps. It was a productive and inspiring day, laying the foundation for a successful collaboration over the coming years.
The meeting provided an opportunity for partners to discuss the project roadmap, establish collaboration mechanisms and coordinate activities across the technical, industrial, sustainability, market uptake and communication work packages. The strong engagement and enthusiasm across the consortium highlighted the shared ambition to make PACE a success.
Read also: SOWISE+ project to demonstrate urban waste biorefinery at industrial scale
Vision and objectives
As Niels van Stralen, project coordinator said, “PACE demonstrates how circular chemistry can become part of existing industrial systems at a meaningful scale. By upgrading infrastructure that already exists and using locally available side-streams, we show that sustainable chemistry does not have to start from scratch. PACE is an important example of how Europe can build more resilient and circular chemical value chains.”
Next steps
The PACE consortium will now focus on the first implementation activities required for the establishment of the biorefinery and the optimisation of the MCFA production process. In parallel, partners will advance the validation of bio-based MCFAs in targeted industrial applications, while carrying out sustainability, circularity and market uptake assessments to support future replication across Europe.
Stakeholder engagement, knowledge exchange and communication activities will accompany these efforts, ensuring collaboration across the value chain and supporting the wider deployment of circular bio-based solutions.
Project consortium
· CHAINCRAFT BV (Coordinator) – Netherlands
· COOPERATIE KONINKLIJKE AVEBE UA – Netherlands
· INNOV AD – Belgium
· ECOVER CO-ORDINATION CENTER – Belgium
· ACONDICIONAMIENTO TARRASENSE ASSOCIACION (LEITAT) – Spain
· STICHTING PDC RESEARCH FOUNDATION – Netherlands
· Anorel NV – Belgium
· ena Development Consultants – Greece
· SPECIALTY OPERATIONS FRANCE (Syensqo France) – France
· SYMRISE AG – Germany
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The PACE project is funded by the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme through the Circular Bio-based Europe Joint Undertaking (CBE JU) under Grant Agreement No. 101292918. Views and opinions expressed are, however, those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or CBE JU. Neither the European Union nor CBE JU can be held responsible for them.
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Article Source:
Press Release/Material by PACE
Featured image credit: PACE
