In the coming decades, society faces the formidable challenge of providing sustenance for a global population expected to reach 10 billion by 2050. Fortunately, the burgeoning field of biotechnology holds significant promise in addressing this challenge by revolutionizing food production. The central aim of this proposal is to pave the way for the widespread adoption of an innovative technology known as cellular agriculture, which is poised to play a pivotal role in facilitating the global protein transition. Cellular agriculture, in essence, represents a breakthrough methodology for producing a spectrum of sustainable food products. Lead by 8 organisations from 7 countries, representing the innovation ecosystem, APROVALS aims to facilitate the seamless integration of emerging cellular agriculture technologies into the global food landscape, through two main activities: - Sandbox for Innovation: APROVALS offers a dedicated sandbox environment where innovators can test and refine their solutions. This sandbox acts as a fertile ground for experimentation, enabling startups and SMEs to develop their technologies and bring them to market. - Interconnected Stakeholders: The project places a strong emphasis on fostering collaboration among key stakeholders involved in cellular agriculture: 1) Start-ups and Growing SMEs: These enterprises are provided with essential support to advance their technologies and successfully navigate the journey from innovation to market. 2) Innovation Support: Tailored support initiatives are crafted to mitigate risks associated with the innovation process, fostering a conducive ecosystem for cellular agriculture innovation. 3) Regulators and Policymakers: APROVALS actively engages with regulators and policymakers to establish robust protocols and a legal framework. This framework serves to safeguard the market and consumers while simultaneously preventing unwarranted regulatory hurdles that could impede progress in cellular agriculture.

The EU has a significant amount of waste biomass available, more than 900 million tons per year, and 98% of this material ends up in landfill, incinerators, or rotting in open dumps. According to the 2023 Circularity Gap Report, the global economy is now only 7.2% circular. The EU has great potential to convert bio-waste into bio-based products that can be used in multiple bio-applications. This revalorisation can directly support 5-10 times more employment and generate 4-9 times more added value than energy use. Circular Business Models in Bioeconomy (CBMB) face many challenges to become sustainable and profitable. Firstly, primary producers, the owners of the valuable feedstock, are often not integrated into the bioeconomy value chains, and they are often small scale and are fragmented, reducing their ability to negotiate with those higher up the value chain. The result is a suboptimal distribution of benefits and incentives. The main challenges in designing CBMB consist of: - lack of knowledge sharing and collaboration between stakeholders - need for new supply chains and logistical networks - difficult scale up of innovative technologies - understanding of the potential synergies and symbiotic relationships between sectors - overcoming poor public acceptance - complex and fragmented policy schemes, As a result of this, there is a lack of demonstrated and replicable systemic bio-solutions for the territorial deployment of the circular bioeconomy. The PRIMED Project PRIMED will co-create innovative forms of cooperation to integrate primary producers in novel bioeconomy value chains with a multi-actor approach. To do so, PRIMED will develop novel CBMB to produce high-value bio-based products through advanced biorefineries, and will demonstrate them in five Living Labs (LLab): PRIMED will also empower multi-actors to co-design a collaborative ecosystem to accelerate the bioeconomy, with an Open Access knowledge hub and toolkit (PRIMED digital toolbox).