CBE JU puts industrial scale at center of €287.8 million food and feed portfolio

The Circular Bio-based Europe Joint Undertaking (CBE JU) has committed €287.8 million (US$323.1 million) in EU funding across 47 food and feed projects, with nearly 60% focused on demonstration or flagship activities intended to move production toward industrial scale. A portfolio update published on September 16 put total investment, including industrial contributions, at €409.5 million (US$459.7 million). The projects account for around one fifth of CBE JU’s portfolio and cover new ingredients, protein sources and production processes.

• CBE JU’s 47 food and feed projects represent €409.5 million (US$459.7 million) in combined EU and industrial investment.
• Nearly 60% are demonstration or flagship actions, supporting development at pilot or industrial scale.
• Projects include structured mycelium, continuous fermentation, microalgae protein and protein recovery from agricultural sidestreams.

The figures describe an existing portfolio rather than a new funding award. Across those projects, participants have reported 131 new products with potential food and feed applications: 60 food ingredients, 42 feed ingredients and 29 bio-based chemicals with possible uses in those markets.

“Europe does not lack promising food and feed innovation. The challenge is getting more of it through demonstration and towards competitive industrial production,” said Nicoló Giacomuzzi-Moore, Executive Director of CBE JU.

“CBE JU helps companies overcome the risks of scale-up and bring partners across the value chain into that process. The resulting facilities and evidence can then support further investment and deployment in Europe.”

Fermentation features heavily in the portfolio, with projects addressing production equipment, feedstock selection and downstream processing alongside the ingredients themselves.
MycoStruct is developing structured mycelium ingredients for whole-cut meat alternatives using liquid fermentation. The project aims to scale production to a 5,000-liter demonstration facility, with a target output of 25 tons annually.

“With the help of CBE JU, the project is developing a completely new generation of meat alternatives, using a new proprietary fermentation technology to replicate the structure of animal muscle tissue,” said Gareth Payne, Chief Product Officer at Adamo Foods.

ZEST is investigating fungal protein production using agricultural and food-industry sidestreams, including improvements to bioreactor performance and downstream processing. PROSCALE is developing continuous fermentation processes that use food-industry sidestreams to produce ingredients for human consumption.

SynoProtein takes a different approach to feedstocks, using biogenic gases generated from sawmill residues to grow microorganisms for protein-rich fish feed.

One of the portfolio’s industrial examples is PLENITUDE, which established a mycoprotein facility in Sas van Gent, the Netherlands. The project integrated aerobic fermentation with an existing conventional biorefinery, rather than building an entirely separate production system.

According to CBE JU, the facility is operational and has a potential production capacity of 10,000 tons annually. The project reported its first commercial supply in 2025 and developed applications spanning food and pet food. That capacity figure describes the facility’s potential output, rather than reported annual production.

Other projects are recovering proteins already present in plant and aquatic biomass. The completed GreenProtein project demonstrated recovery and purification of food-grade RuBisCO protein from vegetable-processing residues.

CleanAlgae2Value is developing food-grade microalgae protein isolates alongside other ingredients, with work covering production scale-up, ingredient quality and testing in food applications.

In Spain, SUSTAINEXT is adapting an existing plant in Extremadura into a multi-product biorefinery designed to process 20,000 tons of locally sourced biomass annually. Its planned inputs include medicinal and aromatic plants, alongside sidestreams from olives, cardoons and pomegranates.

The project aims to connect 12 value chains and produce 46 extracts and ingredients for markets including food and feed. Local growers will supply crops and agricultural sidestreams, with disused tobacco fields being used to cultivate medicinal and aromatic plants.

Farm-based processing is also being tested through Rural BioReFarmeries. The project separates fresh grass into a fiber-rich fraction suitable for livestock feed and a liquid fraction from which protein and other components can be recovered. It has produced samples containing more than 70% crude protein.

Technical progress has left several commercial questions unresolved. At a CBE JU food and feed cluster workshop in June, participants identified novel food and feed additive regulatory pathways, investment, infrastructure and consumer acceptance among the factors affecting deployment.

Existing facilities are also being used across projects. UP4HEALTH reported that its operating pilot plant subsequently hosted ALEHOOP trials recovering protein from lupin by-products, extending the use of infrastructure developed through the earlier program.

If you liked this, check these out...‍

• Adamo Foods secures €10 million EU grant to scale mycelium steak as it targets price parity with beef

• PROSCALE secures €7 million EU backing to scale single-cell proteins from food industry sidestreams

• The Protein Brewery secures EU novel food approval for Fermotein mycelium ingredient