Adding value to biomaterials in the arctic region (ValueBAR)

The Regional Council of Lapland has granted €786,494 in funding from the European Regional Development Fund for the project Adding value to biomaterials in the arctic region (ValueBAR), of which €629,195 (80%) is EU support. The coordinator of the project is Natural Resources Institute Finland (Luke, funding: €305,998) and the partial implementers are Lapland University of Applied Sciences (LUAS, funding: €276,736), Lappia Vocational College and Lappia-Education Ltd (Lappia, funding: €54,744) and Lapland Education Centre REDU (REDU, funding: €149,016).

Natural products can serve as valuable raw materials in various industries in the production of food, supplements, feed, cosmetics and new bio-based products. In the absence of suitable methods, companies in the natural product sector in Lapland easily remain only producers of raw materials and the added value money flows elsewhere.

ValueBAR - the project develops the technological capabilities of companies in the natural product sector for the full utilization of raw materials by means of extraction and separation processes. In the project, cascade model processes are performed for 1-3 natural raw materials through pretreatment methods and extractions into product prototypes, evaluating the carbon footprint resulting from the manufacture of product prototypes and the technical-economic profitability of the entire process. In the project, which progresses from research through company workshops to product pilots, the goal is for companies to produce new bioproducts for the market in the future. In addition, during the project, the existing development environments and cooperation networks of the Lapland region and Luke will be utilized, and the open material bank of Biolabra of LUAS will be built, through which the material, infographics, publications and videos created in the project will be shared for use after the project as well.