NATAC BIOTECH SL

Their core work

NATAC Biotech is a Spanish SME specializing in the extraction and valorization of bioactive compounds from plant materials, with a strong focus on olive-derived byproducts. They develop functional ingredients for food, feed, cosmetics, and nutraceutical applications by turning agricultural side streams — olive mill waste, olive leaves, rapeseed, and microalgae — into high-value products. Their work bridges green chemistry extraction techniques with industrial applications like aquaculture feed additives, anti-ageing cosmetics, and health supplements.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

NATAC's early work (2017-2018) was rooted in olive oil chemistry — extracting specific compounds like oleacein and oleocanthal for nutraceutical, cosmetic, and anti-inflammatory applications. From 2019 onward, their focus shifted toward industrial-scale biorefinery processes, turning olive leaf biomass and crop side streams into multiple product lines through biotransformation and advanced separation technologies. Their involvement in Newcotiana also signals a tentative move into plant biotechnology and genome editing, though this remains peripheral to their extraction expertise.

NATAC is scaling up from lab-level compound extraction toward full biorefinery systems that convert agricultural waste into multiple commercial product streams — a move from ingredient supplier to circular bioeconomy player.

How they like to work

NATAC balances coordination and partnership roles almost equally, having coordinated 3 projects and participated in 4 others plus one as a third party. With 96 unique consortium partners across 20 countries, they operate in large, diverse consortia typical of BBI and MSCA programs. This broad network suggests they are comfortable integrating into multi-partner projects and contributing specialized extraction expertise to larger value chains.

NATAC has built a wide European network of 96 partners across 20 countries, reflecting the international scope of BBI and MSCA programs. Their collaboration reach is notably broad for an SME, indicating strong credibility as a trusted bioprocessing partner.

What sets them apart

NATAC occupies a distinctive niche as an SME that combines deep knowledge of olive-derived bioactives with industrial extraction and biorefinery capabilities. Unlike academic labs studying the same compounds, NATAC brings process scale-up and commercial product development to consortia. Their ability to work across food, feed, cosmetics, and pharma applications from a single feedstock (olive byproducts) makes them a versatile partner for circular bioeconomy projects.

Highlights from their portfolio

• OLEAF4VALUE
  Their largest coordinated project (EUR 924,500), representing the culmination of years of olive valorization work into a full multi-product biorefinery concept.
• AQUOLIVE
  Rare case of an SME successfully scaling from SME Instrument Phase 1 (EUR 50,000 in 2017) to a full BBI-RIA project (EUR 1.74M in 2019) on the same concept — strong validation of their aquaculture feed innovation.
• Newcotiana
  Signals diversification into plant molecular farming and CRISPR-based breeding techniques, a significant departure from their core extraction business.