Avantium officially opens Dutch flagship bioplastics plant for European green transition and global expansion

Dutch bioplastics company Avantium is officially opening its commercial production facility today in Delfzijl, Netherlands. The launch follows over 20 years of development and will enable industrial output of the company’s furandicarboxylic acid (FDCA) and polyethylene furanoate (PEF) materials.

The opening ceremony is being attended by the Netherlands’ deputy prime minister and minister of climate, Sophie Hermans, and the Dutch Queen Máxima. 

Tom van Aken, CEO of Avantium, tells Packaging Insights: “I think this is the biggest milestone that the company has achieved in its history. This is the catalyst for us to switch from an R&D company to a commercial operational company.”

“Ultimately, the launch will enable us to not only sell products coming out of the plant and put them on the market, but in parallel, it’s going to launch our technology licensing business and allow our licensees or potential licensees to be building larger scale factories around the globe.”

Circularizing global markets 

Aken says the company has customers and off-takers worldwide and that the drive for a circular economy is present in all its markets, particularly in Europe and Asia. 

“I think there is a very strong desire in Europe to be an innovation-driven economy, but also a very strong drive toward sustainability. So I think that’s why there is a big desire and a big ambition in Europe to enable small green companies to become big and for big companies to become green.”

“In that sense, we follow the category of small green companies that want to be big and that is again why we will have a lot of people from the EU joining us.”

Europe has a large and significant chemical industry, Aken notes, but the industry is still very dependent on fossil fuels. 

The company’s first lab experiment took place in 2005 when Aken became the company CEO. In the 19 years since then, the Avantium team has had to overcome many things to scale its chemistry and get permits and financing. 

“Construction has finally been completed. This was the last week before we are starting to use chemicals in large volumes. The biggest challenge is really to make sure that the plant starts up well and moves quickly to stable operations where a consistent quality product is coming out to demonstrate to everyone,” he says.