An alliance between four national research providers has been established to aid the recovery of high value co-products from New Zealand's primary industries.

The Bioresource Processing Alliance taps into some of the best technical facilities, research and processing knowledge available in the country through the alliance between Scion, AgResearch, Plant and Food Research and Callaghan Innovation. Each partner is already actively engaging in research to derive greater value from low value biological streams.

The alliance will have wide reaching benefits for the country's economy by adding value to the secondary by-products from forestry, marine, agricultural, horticultural and microbiological sectors. It integrates the research expertise and processing technologies within the separate sectors, and provides a single point of engagement for other research collaborators, industry, commercial investors and government agencies.

The BPA will enable industry partners to gain access to raw materials from across the whole primary sector, along with the opportunity to produce high value co-products from low value biological raw materials. It will also provide opportunity to create industry clusters across whole value chains, and generate employment with potential spin-off for secondary industries, such as engineering for plant design and construction.

The Bioresource Processing Alliance is a government-subsidised initiative, with $2.5 million per annum available during the next five years for technical and industry development.