Press Releases

A high-level, 50-member business delegation from Flanders, led by Minister-President Matthias Diependaele, visited the Fraunhofer Institute for Process Engineering and Packaging IVV to explore cutting-edge innovations in food development, packaging, and recycling technologies. Bringing together leaders from the food, packaging, machinery, chemical, wood, and textile sectors, the visit capped a multi-day tour of Bavaria and highlighted the growing momentum behind cross-border cooperation to build a sustainable and resilient industrial future for Europe.

At drinktec 2025, the Fraunhofer Institute for Process Engineering and Packaging IVV will present three technology solutions that use AI, powerful software and newly developed contamination sensors to eliminate the problem of safety-related, systematic oversizing of cleaning processes in hygiene-critical areas such as heat exchangers, tanks, and pipelines. The key to this is knowing when, where, and how much contamination is present and, based on this information, carrying out a precisely tailored cleaning process.

The Fraunhofer Institute for Process Engineering and Packaging IVV will be demonstrating how plastics can be successfully recovered from complex plastic mixtures at the K trade fair for plastics and rubber from October 8-15 in Düsseldorf. With the solvent-based recycling process developed at the Fraunhofer IVV, a wide variety of plastics from packaging, but also from the automotive, electronics, construction and textile sectors, can be recycled and processed into high-purity plastic recyclates. In this way, waste fractions that cannot be recycled using conventional recycling processes according to the state of the art become available for a circular economy with the solvent-based process. The Fraunhofer IVV will be exhibiting at the stand of the Fraunhofer Cluster Circular Plastics Economy CCPE in hall 7.0, stand 70SC05 under the motto "Bridge the Gap to Circularity".

In the future, plastic packaging must be both resource-efficient and recyclable. To this end, Fraunhofer IVV is collaborating with partners to develop AI-based packaging solutions. These tools have been designed to optimise the life cycle assessment, design and material of packaging. All information is shared via a digital data room. This enables recyclates to be used more efficiently and packaging to be designed in a more sustainable way.

The Fraunhofer flagship project "FutureProteins" brings together six Fraunhofer Institutes to develop sustainable solutions for the future of food. The project focuses on year-round, climate- and location-independent production of protein-rich foods from alternative sources such as plants, fungi, algae, and insects. Using closed, space-efficient indoor systems—like vertical farming, insect farming, bioreactors, and photobioreactors—researchers produce proteins in a resource-saving way. These raw materials are combined to create innovative and nutritionally valuable food prototypes. By utilizing by-products in a circular economy approach, the project offers sustainable alternatives to meat and other animal-based foods in response to environmental challenges and the global need for healthy nutrition.

At CosmeticBusiness, the Fraunhofer Institute for Process Engineering and Packaging IVV will be presenting a multi-sensory experience at the MOC Event Center Messe München on June 4-5, 2025. In Hall 2 at Stand A31, visitors will learn how cosmetic products with scientifically proven effects are developed. The Fraunhofer IVV supports companies in the development of products that appeal to all the senses. This includes the identification and extraction of innovative ingredients, their formulation and processing as well as the creation of an appealing packaging concept. The sustainable effectiveness of the products can be precisely measured and confirmed by legally validated claims. For safe and hygienic cosmetics production, the institute presents innovative technologies in a Clean & Smart area that enable safe production with needs-based cleaning processes. Simultaneously, they can qualify machine operators in virtual reality.

From May 3-8, 2025, the leading international trade fair IFFA in Frankfurt am Main will revolve around the topic "Technology for Meat and Alternative Proteins". In line with this, the Fraunhofer Institute for Process Engineering and Packaging IVV will be showing how alternative ingredients and textured proteins can be used to create meat substitute products with the typical meat structure. Technologies for automated cleaning will be presented for resource-saving and efficient production. The Fraunhofer IVV will be exhibiting at the VDMA stand C31 in Hall 11.

Freising, Germany – After three and a half years of intensive research, the EU project CIRCULAR FoodPack has developed new processes to effectively recycle flexible polyethylene food packaging, blazing the trail for a sustainable circular economy in this sector. The project partners have applied and validated a tracer-based sorting technology that can separate food and non-food packaging waste. A combination of novel pre- and post-treatments with mechanical or solvent-based recycling processes is used to remove printing inks, odours and other impurities from the food packaging waste. The resulting post-consumer recyclates fulfil the quality requirements for their further processing in new flexible packaging.

Culinary foam made from the whites of chicken eggs makes baked goods light and airy. In the LeguFoam project, Fraunhofer researchers are working on a plant-based alternative made from legumes.

Freising, Germany – Following five years of intense research, the Circular Flooring consortium has proven that it is possible to produce plasticiser-free PVC recyclates from end-of-life flexible floor coverings. The solvent-based recycling process, which is operated with CreaSolv® formulations1 jointly developed by Fraunhofer IVV and CreaCycle, can efficiently remove critical legacy plasticisers from waste PVC flooring. The recovered PVC complies with EU REACH legislation and can therefore be used to produce new PVC flooring. The project thus supports the EU objective of establishing a European circular economy. In addition, the consortium has demonstrated the technical feasibility of the process on a pilot scale, paving the way for scaling up to commercial dimensions. The Fraunhofer Institute for Processing Engineering and Packaging IVV in Freising, Germany, carried out the project together with ten companies and research facilities from five European countries. The European Union provided Circular Flooring with funding of around €5.4 million from its Horizon 2020 programme.