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Businesses valorising agro-food products and waste must often deal with a considerable flow of material and master state-of-the-art processes, meaning they reach rapidly an industrial scale. Therefore, it is essential to have adequate funding available and appropriate personnel with the knowledge and skills needed to establish and grow the business. This will often require reaching out to partners, competences, and resources outside the local environment. For this reason, companies that base their business on circular solutions and the re-use of production waste often must carry out internal research to improve the efficiency of the process and thus of the business itself. Companies can also conduct such research by collaborating with local, national and international research organisations (universities, institutes, clusters). 

Ensuring a sufficient and constant supply of raw material is crucial for businesses processing agro-food by-products. Therefore, when some or all supply of for your waste valorisation business comes from the local area, it is beneficial or even essential, to establish long-term relationships with your suppliers of the “by-products /waste” and make them your close partners.

The different type of waste from production is almost always a problem that companies must manage. Therefore, the adoption of circular solutions by companies and the emergence of new businesses that allow and facilitate local companies to manage production waste is a benefit for the company directly involved in the process, but also for society in general.

The circular economy and the bioeconomy, as well as the attention of governments to environmental issues, has supported the emergence and development of new types of business. This has allowed businesses to find new sources of income and the creation of new companies. This also creates new jobs and business opportunities for rural areas which will make them more attractive for companies and people to reside in.

Given the intrinsic nature of this type of business, the development of new knowledge is an inevitable outcome of the business itself. This knowledge benefits the entrepreneurs themselves, their workers, research organisations and society in general.

Often the business idea linked to this type of business strategy involves the implementation of new innovative solutions that require access to funding sources (loans, grants, investments) and a workforce with sufficient professional skills and experience to make a qualified assessment of the often-ambitious project. Lack of knowledge on these issues may lead to a risk of failure or slow development of the business.

In addition, local or national regulations and laws can often be unclear or subject to constant change, thus slowing down the implementation process and causing problems that were difficult to foresee when the business idea was designed.

Dealing with by-products/waste can also be a challenge in term of logistics. To ensure a viable supply and storage of low value resources to run your business is a challenge that could put the viability of your business at risk. When looking at the available by-products, it is also essential to reflect on the long-term operation of the business, ensuring that your business will source sustainable supplies (by-products).

If the by-product is in any way toxic or otherwise potentially dangerous to humans, animals, or the environment, this greatly increases the difficulty of all abovementioned points.

• • AgroInLog: H2020 project aiming to demonstrate the opportunities of new integrated biomass logistic centres processing by-products from the agri-food sector
• • AGRIMAX – Agri and food waste valorisation co-ops based on flexible multi-feedstocks biorefinery processing technologies for new high added value applications 

• In the Grand-Est of France local grain and beet farmers have joint forces by their cooperatives to help transforming a disadvantaged agricultural area into an agro-industrial research hub!