Vall Companys Group and Kimitec promote the circular economy of by-products
This joint venture has been created jointly by the Vall Companys Group and Kimitec Biogroup, through its research and development centre, MAAVi Innovation Center. The project dedicated to research, development and innovation (R&D&I) has an initial joint investment of two million euros.
MVC Ingredients is made up of a team of five researchers dedicated to the valorisation of by-products, with a first line of work on pig hair, which will be followed by other projects that are currently in the initial stages of study and evaluation. The scope of all these projects ranges from the research and development part to the industrial scaling up and placing on the market of the by-products that are generated.
The work will be carried out at Kimitec's headquarters in Vícar, Almería. These facilities have a laboratory dedicated to R&D&I projects and an industrial plant where innovation trials can be scaled up; all with a total of 50,000 m2.
MVC Ingredients is the reflection of an alliance between industry leaders. Grupo Vall Companys is the leading producer of pork and poultry in Spain and Kimitec is the founding company of MAAVi Innovation Center, the largest biotechnology innovation hub dedicated to natural products in Europe.
The project between the two companies is focused on promoting a sustainable and highly innovative circular economy system by valorising animal by-products into value-added co-products for the market, improving both ESG objectives and the bottom line.
Grupo Vall Companys has recently started circularity projects with other sector leaders. For example, the Veos Ibérica project in Monzón; a joint venture with the Belgian Veos Group dedicated to the reuse of porcine blood to produce blood plasma. Or, the joint project with Bioibérica - the leading pharmaceutical company in Spain - to obtain heparin through porcine intestinal mucosa, creating the BioVall joint venture.
The general manager of the pig division of the Vall Companys Group, Albert Morera , has highlighted that "the pig sector has always been characterised by a very high level of circular economy and at the Vall Companys Group we already have several parallel projects to revalue our waste".
For its part, Kimitec's MAAVi Innovation Center has the mission of developing R&D&I solutions for a future without waste or chemical residues in food, promoting a food system free of chemical synthesis products and completely circular. With more than 12 years of experience and more than 14 million euros of investment, it has developed projects to revalue by-products from leading companies in the agri-food sector both nationally and internationally.
In the words of Felix Garcia , CEO of Kimitec, "this joint venture represents an important milestone in our vision of a more sustainable future. By changing the paradigm from waste to by-products, MVC Ingredients will contribute to using resources more efficiently and sustainably, thus promoting our mission of managing waste as a source of wealth in our business models".
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