Bioeconomy, an area of smart specialization for Romania, is characterized by linear value chains. The sustainable closure of the loop of value chains involves the recovery of bioactive components from byproducts and a cascading/systemic approach for the revalorization of coproducts from one production cycle as resources for another production process. The recovered biologically active components are used for products highly required in the market, such as dietary supplements, cosmeceuticals, plant biostimulants, and bioplastic additives. The dietary supplements market exceeds the level of €200 million in Romania. Globally, it is projected to reach USD 194.63 billion by 2025, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) increasing to 7.8%. The cosmeceuticals market is the market with the fastest growth of all personal care products, with a potential global level of USD 85 billion by 2024, growing at a CAGR of 8.81%. Already, in Romania, the market for cosmeceuticals exceeds 10% from the total cosmetic product market of €1.7 billion. Plant biostimulants represent a new category of the products used as inputs in the plant cultivation technologies, USD 4.9 billion by 2025, at a CAGR of 11.24% during the forecast period, with an estimated growth rate of 11.24% per year by 2018, when it will exceed USD 4.9 billion at the global level. Despite the lack of specific regulation in Romania, the market of plant biostimulants (sold mainly together with fertilizers) exceeds €150 million. Biodegradable plastics will increase to USD 6.12 billion by 2023, at a CAGR of 15.1%. The high CAGR of these markets is related also to societal requirements. Plant biostimulants are increasing crop tolerance to abiotic stress, amplified by climatic changes. Totally biodegradable bioplastics represent one of the solutions for (micro)plastic ocean pollution. The development of the new (bio)process intended to close the loop in the bioeconomy value chains requires the intensification of the research and innovation on both laboratory and scale-up processes. Large-scale production also requires process intensification for higher productivity and profitability. Specific intellectual property aspects are arising from the implementation of the biomass pyramid value—e.g., the protection of the new utilizations for the products recovered from bioeconomy side-streams.
