MATRICA SPA

Their core work

Matrìca is an Italian bio-based chemistry company based in Porto Torres, Sardinia, operating at the intersection of agriculture and industrial chemistry. They convert non-food crops and agricultural biomass into bio-based chemicals, bioplastics, and industrial feedstocks through integrated biorefinery operations. Their real-world contribution is demonstrating that underutilized crops grown on marginal land can replace fossil-based inputs in industrial value chains. They bring industrial-scale processing capability to research consortia that need to prove lab-scale bioeconomy concepts at demonstration scale.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

In their first H2020 project (FIRST2RUN, 2015-2019), they focused on demonstrating an integrated biorefinery for dry crops. By their second engagement (GRACE, 2017-2022), the scope widened specifically toward cultivating miscanthus and hemp on marginal lands as dedicated industrial feedstocks. The shift shows a move from proving the biorefinery concept itself to securing reliable, non-food-competing feedstock supply chains upstream.

They are moving upstream from processing toward securing dedicated non-food biomass supply chains, making them a strong future partner for anyone building feedstock-to-product bioeconomy value chains.

How they like to work

Matrìca participates as an industrial partner rather than a coordinator, joining large BBI-backed consortia (34 partners across 9 countries). Their role is to bring industrial demonstration capability to research-heavy consortia. Working with them means plugging into established European bioeconomy networks, but expect them to execute a defined industrial piece rather than lead scientific direction.

They have collaborated with 34 unique partners across 9 countries, operating inside the European bioeconomy and BBI ecosystem. Their Porto Torres biorefinery base anchors them in Italy but their project network is pan-European.

What sets them apart

Unlike most H2020 food/agriculture participants, Matrìca is not a research lab or a farm — they are an operational industrial biorefinery. That makes them one of the few European partners who can physically process demonstration volumes of bio-based feedstock. If a project needs to move bioeconomy science from pilot to industrial scale in Southern Europe, they are a natural choice.

Highlights from their portfolio

• FIRST2RUN
  A EUR 9.3M BBI flagship Innovation Action demonstrating an integrated biorefinery — one of the largest bioeconomy demonstration projects in H2020.
• GRACE
  Linked their biorefinery expertise directly to miscanthus and hemp grown on marginal lands, tackling the food-vs-fuel and land-use-competition problem head-on.