Europe funds project to boost pet food ingredient capabilities

The Circular Bio-based Europe Joint Undertaking (CBE JU), a public-private partnership between the European Commission and the Bio-based Industries Consortium, is behind this multimillion investment.

The €14 million ($15.1M) funding will be used to develop Arbiom’s new project SYLPLANT, which aims to build a new facility in France to produce sustainable ingredients for pet food and aquafeed.  

Arbiom’s CEO Marc Chevrel says, “This factory paves the way to Arbiom’s industrial deployment. It will bring 10,000 tons per year of alternative, highly nutritional and sustainable protein to the market to meet future food needs.” 

The project will also validate the use of SylPro—a single-cell protein used as a nutritional alternative in pet food—in feed applications, including aquafeed and pet food.

More investments

The EU-backed joint consortium has funded other projects related to animal food.

Sylfeed, a consortium representing all stages of the wood-to-food value chain, received an investment from CBE JU to turn wood residue into protein-rich feed ingredients for the fish food market.

The consortium also invested in ALEHOOP, a project aiming to diversify protein sources, using seaweed and legume by-products to create protein for products such as animal food.

ALEHOOP hopes to reduce the EU’s dependency on imported proteins and increase raw material security.