From Fleece to Flora: SilviBio is Unlocking Sheep's Wool as a Value-Add Technical Fibre for Commercial Plant Production

PROPA lettuce block

At a glance

• Lead organisation: SilviBio Limited, based in Scotland

• Product: PROPA, a peat-free growing media made from 100% UK sourced raw materials

• Funding: Innovate UK Launchpad, delivered by the Industrial Biotechnology Innovation Centre

• Focus: Valorising non-textile grade sheep's wool as a technical fibre for commercial growing media

• Result: Completed commercial grower trials, expanded the PROPA product range, secured follow-on investment and started building a first factory in Scotland

With funding from Innovate UK’s Launchpad programme and support from IBioIC as the cluster management organisation, SilviBio Limited turned undervalued British wool into a patent pending raw material for peat-free growing media.

The Challenge

SilviBio founders Alicja Dzieciol, CEO and Philip Shelton, COO

Sheep farming underpins rural economies across Scotland and the UK. Innovate UK KTN's Wool Innovation Action Plan describes the sector as "the foundation of rural economies where there are limited alternative employment opportunities," noting it contributes £291.4 million to the economy and supports 34,000 farm jobs alongside 111,405 jobs in allied industries. Yet wool itself, a byproduct of an industry built around lamb, is largely wasted. In 2020, UK farmers received as little as 15 to 30 pence per fleece while paying more than £1 to have each sheep sheared, and by 2021 the UK was still exporting 36 million kilograms of wool worth $58 million. The report calls wool a readily available but largely wasted resource, and urges innovation to give it new uses.

Growers face a parallel raw material problem. The UK's move to ban peat by 2030 is expected to cost the more than 15,000 UK growers of food, ornamental and tree seedling crops £192.6 million in transition costs and a further £456.1 million in profit losses from higher input costs, according to DEFRA's 2022 impact assessment. Global demand for growing media is projected to rise by 250 to 290 per cent by 2050, requiring up to 17 million cubic metres of new material a year, at a time when suitable raw material streams are already scarce (Nguyen et al, 2026). The House of Lords Horticulture Sector Committee's “Sowing the Seeds” report warns that plugging this gap with imported alternatives such as coir risks simply exporting our carbon footprint, alongside quality control and supply chain concerns.

The Solution

PROPA peat-free growing medium

SilviBio's Launchpad project set out to close this gap by applying biotechnology to an overlooked material. The team developed a patent pending production process that valorises wool, and potentially other feedstocks, without degrading or composting it, preserving and enhancing its natural properties instead. The resulting technical fibre gives growing media improved water retention, better transplanting outcomes and faster root development, turning a low value farm byproduct into a functional ingredient for commercial glasshouse and polytunnel growing.

The Outcome

Since completing the Launchpad project, SilviBio has:

• Completed grower trials with paying commercial clients, who reported a "huge improvement to anything we've tried" and the "fastest rooting, best water retention" they had seen

• Developed its patent pending formulations into the PROPA growing media range, with versions tailored to different crops and production systems

• Been recognised as a leading woman-led deeptech business, winning a WomenTechEU award and EIT Food's 2025 Tech Validation prize

• Secured follow-on investment to build its first factory in Scotland

Alex Blackshaw - Innovation & Growth Specialist , Innovate UK Business Growth, said:"SilviBio has demonstrated exactly what successful innovation looks like: identifying a real market challenge, developing a differentiated solution and then working closely with customers to prove its value. Having worked with the team over a number of years, I've been continually impressed by their focus, determination and ability to translate innovation into commercial opportunity. The progress they have made since receiving Launchpad support is a testament to both the strength of the technology and the capability of the team behind it."

Dr Alicja Dzieciol, SilviBio's CEO, said: "Not only was our Launchpad project critical to developing our patent pending technologies, but the Centre's support in connecting us to investors and end users has been critical to our commercialisation. Without both, we would not have been able to bridge the gap between research and real impact."

Looking Ahead

SilviBio is now building its first factory in Scotland to scale up production, with the ambition of delivering a fully circular, 100% UK sourced peat-free growing media for commercial growers.