It all started with something as common as a Potato. In a world where agri-food waste often ends up forgotten in landfills, at Tecnopackaging we saw an opportunity. What if that starch, extracted from the industrial processing residues of potatoes, could become the beginning of a new story? A story of innovation, sustainability, and the future?
This is how our involvement in BRILIAN,began—an ambitious European project that champions the circular bioeconomy as a driver of real change. For us, it’s more than just a project; it’s a testing ground where what is usually discarded becomes raw material for useful and scalable solutions. Our mission: to transform these by-products into biodegradable materials with direct applications in packaging and agriculture.
Thanks to our expertise in biopolymers, we’ve developed a biodegradable thermoplastic starch (TPS) that brings two products to life: flexible packaging films and agricultural mulch that disappears without a trace after use. But we didn’t stop there. We knew that for these solutions to succeed, being eco-friendly wasn’t enough—they had to integrate seamlessly into existing industrial processes. And that’s exactly what we achieved.
A key stop on this journey is Vitoria-Gasteiz, where, in collaboration with the Paturpat/Udapa cooperative and Aitiip Technology Centre, we installed a pilot plant. There, starch gains new life as the base for the TPS used in our products. All of it under real-world conditions, in a genuine agro-industrial setting. Because innovation isn’t just about experimenting—it’s also about validating and scaling.
However, BRILIAN doesn’t stop at one material or a single application. It goes further. With 13 entities from six countries working across ten bio-based value chains, the project explores raw materials like thistle, sunflower, and rapeseed. From them emerge solutions for sectors as diverse as bioplastics, fertilizers, and even animal feed. It’s a comprehensive vision of sustainability, with rural areas as the epicenter of a new circular economy.
For us, BRILIAN is also a strategic platform: a collaborative environment where we can test what we do best—develop functional, sustainable, and market-ready packaging. Our experience in enhancing barrier properties, recyclability, and incorporating functional additives allows us to tailor each solution to today’s demands.
At Tecnopackaging, we believe in a sustainability that is manufactured, used, and integrated into the industry.
