On 11 October 2018, the European Commission revised its 2012 bioeconomy strategy. To guide this concerted effort by governments and industry, the Commission has planned to launch in 2019 14 concrete measures focusing on three key objectives: strengthen and scale up the bio-based sectors, unlock investments and markets; deploy local bioeconomies rapidly across the whole of Europe; understand the ecological boundaries of the bioeconomy.

We are an interdisciplinary project group consisting of 13 partners in the Alpine Space. Together we are looking for new ways to create economic value from vegetable products – called bioeconomy. For this purpose, the value chains of walnuts, apples and herbs are examined in terms of their bioeconomic potential. Our approach to developing bioeconomic business concepts is transferable to other crop products and, in the long term, to other regions.
(photo: AlpBioEco project partners, © AlpBioEco)

The Albstadt-Sigmaringen University of Applied Sciences is located between Stuttgart and Lake Constance in the south of Germany. Around 3,500 students are enrolled at two locations in Baden-Wuerttemberg: Sigmaringen and Albstadt. The university is the second largest contributor to the AlpBioEco project after the city of Sigmaringen. Four people work there for the AlpBioEco project. We interviewed them for you!
(photo: AlpBioEco project partner Albstadt-Sigmaringen University, © AlpBioEco)

Located between Croatia, Austria, Italy and Hungary, the Slovenian Republic covers 20,273 km². In 2018, it had a population of 2.07 million. Its capital Ljubljana was granted the European Green Capital Award in 2016 for integrating the environment into its urban development. The country has a very high biodiversity, with forests covering 62% of the country's surface area in 2016. If you want to know more and read interesting facts about Slovenian apple, herb and walnut production, click below.

(photo: Bled Lake in Julian Alps, Slovenia © Lukasz Miegoc)

The Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Slovenia - Chamber of Agricultural and Food Enterprises (CCIS-CAFE), one of the two Slovenian partners in the AlpBioEco project, is committed to drawing attention to the traditional quality fruit varieties that are produced in Slovenia by celebrating World Apple Day. CCIS – CAFE conducted also a sensory research entitled Crazy on apples "Izbrana kakovost" among students from different Slovenian faculties to assess and define the apple value chain, one of the objectives of the AlpBioEco project.
(photo: CCIS – CAFE archive, © CCIS – CAFE)