From Primary Food Processing Industries to Biorefineries: Example of Bazancourt-Pomacle

This chapter is focused on the story of the integrated biorefinery of Bazancourt-Pomacle, located close to the famous historical city of Reims (France). Before being called a biorefinery, this iconic site started with the commitment of a few farmers decided to take the risk of investing in a distillery which was falling to bankruptcy. The first step was to set a cooperative and transforming the distillery into a sugar beet refinery. That was the starting point in 1953. Seventy years later, this site still produces sucrose, but also bioethanol, starch, glucose, and gluten as well as chemicals, cosmetics, and detergents. It combines different industrial facilities, more or less interconnected, as well as labs, pilot and demo facilities. This example illustrates the role of biorefineries as cornerstone of the bioeconomy, the place of the biotechnologies for the biomanufacturing and, finally, the ability to combine food and non-food production on the same site. This site has obtained a dual labeling as open innovation platform and territory of industry and is one of the major industrial sites of the B4C cluster.