Following a strategic decision made three years ago, the Bio Base Europe Pilot Plant (BBEPP) began constructing a 75,000-liter demonstration fermenter in September 2023. Just 14 months later, this state-of-the-art fermenter, a testament to BBEPP’s engineering expertise, is now "ready for business." It offers innovators the opportunity to test and validate fermentation processes on an industrial scale while producing market-ready, food-grade materials at cost-effective rates.

Hendrik Waegeman, Head of Business Operations, describes the significance of this development: “While helping companies to bridge the Valley of Death in innovation, by offering them scale-up support up to 15,000 L scale, we often observed they got stuck a second time, i.e. when going to industrial manufacturing scale. There are not only the physical effects of scale, there is also often the requirement to invest significantly in the downstream unit operations at larger scale CMO plants, something we avoid at BBEPP because we have all the downstream units matching the 75,000 L fermentation scale.”

The new fermenter, integrated with BBEPP’s advanced downstream processing equipment, unlocks significant new opportunities for scale-up and production.

Dutch company Vivici became the first to test the new fermentation line. After successfully scaling up its Vivitein™ BLG technology in multiple 15,000-liter runs at BBEPP, the precision fermentation company is now validating its process on a larger production scale.

Stephan van Sint Fiet, CEO of Vivici, shared his enthusiasm: “I am extremely proud that we have been able to hit this critical milestone in our process scale up and get it ‘Right First Time.’ Successfully running our production at a large scale will further strengthen our commercial rollout, giving customers confidence in Vivici as a reliable and trusted supply partner. I’m convinced this is the result of the close and constructive collaboration between the teams of Vivici and BBEPP in the past months.”

The BBEPP team is thrilled by this milestone, celebrating the successful first run with the launch of a parody video that humorously introduces "Fermentation Park." This milestone concludes a €34 million investment program, which included adding a third 15,000-liter line and three 1,500-liter fermenters, tripling BBEPP’s overall fermentation capacity. With these resources, BBEPP is fully equipped to support its customers' growth under optimal conditions.