FITOPLANCTON MARINO, S.L.

Their core work

FITOPLANCTON MARINO is a Spanish marine microalgae production company operating under the EasyAlgae commercial brand, based in El Puerto de Santa María on Spain's Atlantic coast — a location that gives them direct access to marine environments for strain cultivation. They grow and process marine microalgae species, including Tetraselmis and related phytoplankton, into high-value raw and processed ingredients sold into aquaculture, cosmetics, and functional food markets. Their H2020 participation reflects both their upstream cultivation know-how and downstream product formulation capabilities: they joined an international research exchange project to develop microalgae-based cosmetic and aquaculture ingredients, and independently led a feasibility study for commercializing microalgae-derived food supplements targeting chronic disease prevention. As a commercial SME, they bridge laboratory-scale microalgae research and market-ready product development.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

Both H2020 projects are dated 2016, making temporal evolution within the H2020 programme impossible to assess with confidence — there is no later-phase data to compare against. What the project sequence does suggest is a dual-track strategy pursued simultaneously: ALGAE4A-B positioned the company in industrial applications (cosmetics and aquaculture) through a researcher-exchange consortium, while TetraFOOD — which they led themselves — probed the human health and consumer food market via an SME Phase 1 feasibility study. If there is a directional signal, it is that they were actively testing whether the health/food route (higher margins, direct-to-consumer) was viable alongside their established aquaculture supply business.

Their decision to self-coordinate a food-supplement feasibility study suggests they were exploring a pivot toward consumer health markets, where microalgae margins are substantially higher than bulk aquaculture feed.

How they like to work

FITOPLANCTON MARINO has taken both roles in their limited H2020 portfolio: a partner in a larger MSCA-RISE exchange consortium and a coordinator on a small SME Phase 1 project. Their coordinator experience is with a single-stage feasibility grant rather than a full research project, which places them closer to specialist contributor than established consortium leader. With only 6 consortium partners across 4 countries, their network is small and targeted rather than broad, consistent with a production SME that joins consortia to contribute biological materials and application know-how rather than to lead large research programs.

Their H2020 activity involved 6 unique consortium partners spread across 4 countries, indicating a focused European network rather than a broad international one. No repeated partner relationships are detectable from this dataset, suggesting opportunistic rather than long-term consortium ties.

What sets them apart

FITOPLANCTON MARINO is a rare commercial microalgae producer with hands-on cultivation infrastructure who also participates directly in EU-funded research — most companies in this space are either pure producers with no research exposure or research spinouts without commercial scale. Their Atlantic coast location in southern Spain provides access to specific marine strain diversity relevant to cosmetics and food applications. For a consortium needing not just microalgae knowledge but actual biomass supply or real commercial production context, they fill a gap that university partners cannot.

Highlights from their portfolio

• ALGAE4A-B
  Largest project by budget (€234K) and the broadest scope — spanning two distinct industries (cosmetics and aquaculture) through an MSCA research exchange format that brought international scientific collaboration to a small Spanish SME.
• TetraFOOD
  The only project where they acted as coordinator, using an SME Phase 1 feasibility instrument to independently assess commercial viability of microalgae-based functional foods for chronic disease prevention — demonstrating market ambition beyond pure research participation.