Consortium: ITS, SEBOL, SORGAL, SAVINOR, MOLECULAR MESSAGE, UCP, B2E, SEACULTURE, CIIMAR

The World needs a new economic model that generates economic growth by decoupling raw materials from natural resources. With this critical mission in mind, the Blue Bioeconomy Pact embraced the challenge of reindustrializing Portuguese industries through the integration of blue biotech solutions in value chains, leveraging the sustainable use of marine bioresources to increase added value through decarbonizing innovation. This Consortium will bring the Ocean to shelves by investing in 7 sectors – Biomaterials applications (Vertical Biomaterials); new paradigm for Bivalves production (Vertical Bivalves); marine-based Textiles (Vertical Textiles); sustainability in the Food sector (Vertical Food); scale up Algae production (Vertical Algae); circular Feed solutions (Vertical Feed); bioinformatics for the Fishing sector (Vertical Fish) – the Portuguese Blue Biobanks network, a digital platform for the valorization of marine co-products, and promotion of startups and SMEs’ growth and internationalization.

Blue Bioeconomy Pact constitutes one of the mobilizing agendas for Business Innovation, foreseen in the Recovery and Resilience Plan (PRR). This is a consortium of 83 national entities: 53 are companies of various sizes and sectors of activity (from large multinational conglomerates to SMEs and startups) and 30 are ENESII - Non-Business Entities of the R&I System.

By the end of 2025, the Consortium will invest a total of €133 million in the development of over 50 new products, processes and services.

The main objective of the Blue Bioeconomy Pact is to boost the development of a new cutting-edge industrial economic sector in Portugal, based on the sustainable application of marine bioresources in multiple industries.

Its various projects will contribute to decarbonizing the Portuguese economy through the blue bioeconomy: generating economic growth, job creation and reduction of carbon emissions in the country. In short, this Consortium finds the solution to the global scarcity of terrestrial natural resources in the sea.

In the PEP4fish project, the consortium aims to promote a more resilient and robust aquaculture production to respond to the needs of a growing population for nutritious healthy and safe food items. In that sense, in this project, it is intended to develop and apply protein hydrolysates for the seafood value chain, to generate a productive innovation of fish by-products hydrolysates (whole fish and its components) and formulate for the market an innovative, sustainable, and diverse functional aquafeed products (based on different types of hydrolysates). Financed by the European Union – Next Generation EU through Plano de Resiliência e Recuperação de Portugal (https://recuperarportugal.gov.pt/)

For more information, visit: https://www.pep4fish.pt/