Plastic pollution is accelerating the shift in feedstock choices, particularly in fast-moving consumer goods and single-use applications such as packaging, food films, and bags. Bioplastics are playing an increasingly important role here: polymer materials produced from renewable plant-based feedstocks. At Helvicon, we take a practical view of these feedstocks. What matters is local availability, processing efficiency, and the environmental balance across the entire value chain.
The most important sources include crops rich in starch, simple sugars, or other polysaccharides such as cellulose, above all potatoes, corn, sugarcane, and other starch crops such as wheat and cassava. In the case of cellulose, the feedstocks include wood and annual plants.
Corn, cultivated on a very large scale in North and South America, is currently the main feedstock for lactic acid production, which is then used to produce polylactic acid (PLA). Sugarcane, widely grown for example in Brazil, is a source of bioethanol used to manufacture so-called “green” polyethylene. While this is often presented as an environmentally friendly solution, in practice it is frequently criticized as an example of greenwashing. Potatoes and other high-starch crops, such as wheat and cassava, provide feedstock that can be processed directly into thermoplastic starch (TPS) or used as a component in polymer blends. For Helvicon, the potato is particularly important as a local feedstock with genuine potential within the logic of a European regional economy.
The choice of the right feedstock for bioplastics depends on several criteria: (1) local availability, (2) yield potential, (3) crop stability under specific climatic conditions, and (4) the ability to valorize by-products within a circular economy model.
Cellulose requires a deeper and longer processing pathway, which increases costs and makes it less attractive than starch for large-scale applications. Starch from crops grown in other climate zones, such as cassava, also loses part of its environmental rationale because of transport requirements. Against this background, potato starch stands out. Compared with corn starch, it offers better transparency in film applications and may require less energy in processing. In practice, this makes it easier to produce films, foams, and biodegradable packaging.
Another important argument is circularity potential. The potato industry generates production residues such as pulp, protein-rich cell sap, and peels, which in a zero-waste approach can be directed into other applications, including feed or energy use. Integrating starch production with meaningful by-product valorization improves value-chain efficiency and reduces environmental impact. That is why Helvicon focuses not only on the feedstock itself, but on the entire processing system around it.
Within regional and circular economy models, the potato can be an important feedstock for sustainable biopolymer technologies, especially where processing takes place close to the cultivation area and side streams are used in subsequent processes. This is the direction in which Helvicon sees the greatest development potential for plant-based bioplastics.
Prof. Mariusz Mamiński, PhD, DSc
Warsaw University of Life Sciences
Department of Technology and Entrepreneurship in the Wood Industry
Aleja Wojska Polskiego 32E,
77-300 Człuchów
