Cross border value streams from nature – valuable natural products from industrial side streams for natural cosmetic, food and beverage industry (ValueStreams)

A considerable amount of work is done to develop utilization of biomass processing side streams especially in forest industry. The R&D efforts have mainly focused on bulk products (bulk in quantity), that would be manufactured by large industrial enterprises able to cover costs of R&D work. There is less research on high-value products especially in the field of emerging trends. These could be success products also to SMEs and even to small rural SMEs on condition they receive adequate support for their product development. Success of SMEs would contribute to the creation of new jobs and increase the attractiveness of life in small settlements also for young people.

Product development, quality control, marketing, identifying of distribution networks and legislation require various knowledge, skills and, in the case of laboratory work, facilities that can be accessed only by networking and collaborating with several actors. The aim of this project is to create an application for a larger scale project to provide an expert and technological support to companies to enable them to progress ideas of their own, and to help them find collaborators with similar interests in the Baltic Sea Region.