FRD was founded by eleven manufacturing companies, including fibre and reinforcement producers and major actors in the plant chemistry industry. These companies decided to pool their innovation activities in order to reach the critical size necessary for the emergence of a technical plant fibre industry.

FRD works with all types of biomass to optimize their fibre fraction. This includes dedicated crops like fibre flax, hemp and miscanthus, agricultural coproducts like cereal straw and oilseed, viticultural coproducts like vine stocks and shoots, or food processing coproducts like sunflower seed hulls.

FRD is a simplified joint stock company with capital of €459,000, with SME status (small and medium-sized enterprises).

FRD’s capital is open to any new stockholder sharing the commitment to organize technical plant fibre supply chains and pool research with the idea of a multifibre approach.

Our stockholders

FRD is a private innovation company that promotes the emergence and development of innovative applications for biomass-derived plant fibres, using its expertise in terms of:

• Knowledge of markets that use biomass-derived plant fibres
• Implementation of these natural fibres in applications
• Controlling fractionation and functionalization processes for fibres and semi-finished products
• Characterization and quality management of such fractions
• Knowledge on the availability of the resource and how it is mobilized
• Coordinating and leading innovative projects and obtaining dedicated funding

FRD covers skills all along the value chain for natural-fibre applicative development from the field to the finished product, and in all application areas.

FRD proposes customized turnkey support solutions for our customers and/or partners.

FRD relies on a multidisciplinary team specialized in:

• Conducting studies
• Coordinating and leading innovation and research projects
• Securing public funding
• Applicative implementation (insulation, panels, concrete, plastics processing, composites, etc.)
• Fractionation of lignocellulosic materials and the associated semi-finished products
• Characterizing lignocellulosic materials and creating tailored measurement methods

FRD participates actively in the French and European plant-fibre development networks:

• FRD is the administrator for the IAR and CoDEM Picardie competitive clusters. 
• FRD is the IAR competitive cluster’s fibre advisor. It coordinates transportation issues within the IAR biomaterials committee and the “Club d’intérêt” for Sinfoni (the “forward-looking” investment programme).
• FRD is a member of the scientific committees of Sinfoni, Construire en Chanvre (Building in Hemp), and the Biotechnology Chair at the Centrale-Supelec Campus.
• FRD is a member of the Technical Sections of the European flax and hemp confederation CELC, of the European Industrial Hemp Association (EIHA) and of the RMT Biomasse et Territoire.

Under its activities, FRD can rely on  a network of research and study partners as a function of its needs