GEA Invests €4M in New Technology Center for Scaling Biotech and New Food Processes

GEA has moved its Application and Technology Center (ATC) for New Food and biotechnology from Hildesheim to Sarstedt in Lower Saxony, Germany, investing €4 million to convert and equip a facility at the site of GEA Liquid Technologies GmbH.

The center, which has been operational since 2023, offers pilot-scale infrastructure for companies developing production processes for precision fermentation, cell cultivation, and other biomanufacturing applications. The relocation brings it under the same roof as roughly 200 existing GEA staff working in engineering, sales, automation, and service, with around 40 additional employees joining through the ATC. Total headcount at the Sarstedt site will sit at approximately 240.

Testing viability before committing capital

The ATC is designed to address what remains one of the sector’s most persistent bottlenecks: the gap between promising laboratory results and commercially viable production. The center integrates bioreactors ranging from 50 to 500 litres with upstream and downstream process steps, including media preparation, separation, filtration, hygienic process design, and automation.

Frederieke Reiners, Vice President New Food & Biotech at GEA, said: “A good lab result creates interest. A solid process creates confidence. And sometimes the most valuable outcome of a test run is a clear no, because a process isn’t stable enough yet, or the cost structure simply doesn’t hold up. Learning that early can save a company a lot of time and capital.”

The relocation means customers who test biotech processes at the ATC can now draw on the same GEA teams from initial pilot trials through to full industrial plant design, a continuity the company says reduces friction in the scale-up pathway.

Biotechnology with applications beyond ‘New Food’

While precision fermentation and cell cultivation attract the most attention in the context of alternative proteins, GEA noted that the same underlying processes can produce enzymes, amino acids, vitamins, flavors, and other functional ingredients for food, feed, and healthcare. The specific process design varies depending on the organism, product, and target application.

Klaus Stojentin, CEO of GEA’s Nutrition Plant Engineering Division, said: “New Food and biotechnology need places where you can find out whether a promising process can actually become a viable industrial application. In Sarstedt, we bring pilot infrastructure and engineering expertise under one roof. That gives our customers a stronger basis for their next decision.”

The Sarstedt center is the second facility in GEA’s growing ATC network focused on biotech and new food. Last year, GEA opened a $20 million ATC in Janesville, Wisconsin, its first in North America, equipped with bioreactors for precision fermentation, thermal processing, spray drying, and centrifugation, and powered entirely by renewable energy.

A bridge between research and industrial application

At the Sarstedt opening, GEA also spotlighted international partners working in the same space. The Netherlands-based Biotechnology Fermentation Factory (BFF), an open-access fermentation pilot facility on the NIZO Food Innovation Campus in Ede, is building food-grade scale-up capacity with GEA-supplied equipment. Finnish company Solar Foods, which produces its fermentation-based protein Solein at industrial demonstration scale, was also represented.

Sarstedt Mayor Heike Brennecke said: “This new technology center strengthens Sarstedt as a place for engineering, technology and skilled jobs. It sends a clear signal that biotechnology is being developed here and put to work.”

Germany’s federal government has recently identified precision fermentation and industrial biotechnology as priority future technologies, though the pace of development in the new food sector has moved more slowly than many early forecasts suggested. GEA positions the ATC as one piece of the infrastructure needed to connect research with industrial application in a market where financing, regulation, production costs, and scalability all remain determining factors.