"European policies are favourable to the development of green chemistry" (Caroline Petigny, Afyren)

Can you explain your production process?

Our process is based on the natural fermentation of sugar beet by-products to produce 100% biobased products. Because we use natural micro-organisms, we can recycle water back into the system, which means we have a minimal water footprint.

Our finished products are 100% biobased carboxylic acids: we have seven in total. These molecules already exist in nature; the first one we make is acetic acid, known as the main molecule in vinegar. These acids have antibacterial and preservative properties and are used in a variety of applications: human and animal foodstuffs, flavourings, perfumes, lubricants, cosmetics and plastics. All these sectors already make massive use of carboxylic acids, but they are manufactured from petroleum.

That's where Afyren came in : nature knows how to make these products, so there's no reason to continue producing them from petroleum. So we reproduced this natural process on an industrial scale, using a biomimetic approach. At the end of the chain, we also have a co-product: a potassium-rich fertiliser that returns to the soil and can be used in organic farming. It's a very circular model.

How do you source your raw materials?

We work with an intermediary, a sugar manufacturer, who buys sugar beet from farmers, transforms it into sugar, and we recover its residues, such as pulp and molasses. The volumes we buy represent a few thousand tonnes, which is negligible compared with the volumes available on the market.

Anything that affects sugar beet growing (droughts, climate change, phytosanitary regulations) can have an impact on us. But as we only use residues and not the raw material directly, these impacts remain minimal.

Do you plan to use other types of residue?

Yes. The specificity of our process is that it can work with different types of raw materials. Our current plant was developed for sugar beet residues, but if we set up elsewhere in the world, we will look at what biomass is available locally. We have already tested a large number of substrates: wheat, maize and other types of biomass residues, but also bio-waste. We have already identified a partner in Asia, in Thailand, where we will be using sugar cane residues.

Our dream would be to be able to use biowaste directly. What's stopping us for the moment is a technical issue: for a plant, we need regular flows and a relatively constant composition, whereas bio-waste varies by definition. Our innovation teams are working on this.

What stage of development are you at today?

Afyren was founded in 2012 in Clermont-Ferrand (Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes). We are now an SME with around 140 employees spread over three sites: the innovation platform in Clermont-Ferrand, the head office in Lyon and our factory in Moselle, which employs around 80 people.

The factory was inaugurated in 2022, some ten years after the company was founded. We are currently in an industrial ramp-up phase. The plant has a production capacity of 16,000 tonnes of carboxylic acids per year. In 2025, we produced a few hundred tonnes. The challenge this year is to ramp up our production.

What is special about your industrial site in Moselle?

It's a former industrial platform that produced coal-based chemicals 150 years ago, then petroleum-based chemicals, and is now home to green chemistry projects. Initially, it was the Total group that operated alone on this site; little by little, its activity is leaving room for new green chemistry and biotech projects, as part of a drive to revitalise and revitalise the region.

For us, it's very interesting: it's a large platform where all the utilities are available, allowing us to put into practice the concept of industrial ecology - energy sharing and synergies between partners. It's also a Seveso platform, which means we have to comply with high safety standards. Above all, we are locating our plant in an area that is already industrialised: in terms of urban development and land reclamation, we are minimising our impact on the environment and on our neighbours.

Who are your customers?

Our customers are mainly European, if not global, in the food, feed, flavours and fragrances, lubricants, chemicals and cosmetics sectors. Our long-term ambition is to have a plant in each of the three major markets - Europe, Asia and America - so that neither our raw materials nor our finished products have to cross the world.

What facilitates our commercial development is that our products are drop-in products: we replace a molecule that customers are already using, made from petroleum, but produced differently, with renewable carbon. It's a very easy transition for them. We have already secured contracts covering a large part of the plant's production, representing 165 million euros over several years.

Has the geopolitical context created increased demand for your products?

It's a mixed bag. On the one hand, there is growing pressure on fossil fuels, which is good for us. On the other, over the last two years we've seen an economic backlash that is tempering demand for more sustainable products. The two trends are in conflict. For our part, we have no problem with market demand. We have already signed contracts with our customers and secured the sale of almost all our production.

From the outset, we have sought to develop the simplest and most robust technology possible so that we can scale up at a competitive cost. We're running a little behind our initial schedule, but compared with other comparable projects, the gap is smaller, and our model remains competitive. Prices vary depending on the market and the level of quality required. Some markets, such as flavours and fragrances, value naturalness and accept more premium products.

Do European regulations represent obstacles or opportunities for your business?

On the whole, the major European policies under way - decarbonisation, sovereignty, the fight against deforestation - are favourable to us. Take the example of our caproic acid molecule: it is generally made from palm oil. So any regulation aimed at combating deforestation indirectly benefits us.

On the other hand, there are real obstacles to industrial development. Environmental permits to build a factory in France are a major issue. It's a long process, even if the French President has announced that he wants to halve it in his 'Green Industry' plan. In reality, this is not yet the case.

We are also competing with petrochemical products manufactured in plants that have existed for 100 years, that were not subject to the same rules when they were built and that have had time to be optimised and made profitable. In this sense, the issue of energy costs is crucial for us. Unlike a large, long-established company, we have a small team, relatively little experience and irregular production.

This makes it difficult for us to forecast our consumption and plan and optimise our energy purchases. This intermediate phase, before reaching full capacity in routine operation, can be tricky.