From wood to food: Approaching stakeholder integration in forest-based biorefinery development

The expansion of existing pulp mills with additional technology processing concepts to forest-based biorefineries implies high risks. A stakeholder-integrated strategy development is therefore more likely to open up such new business opportunities. Therefore, this paper aims to develop and verify a feasible approach. For this purpose, Porter's deliberate strategy was extended in context of a case study on the production of hemicelluloses for value-Added food markets. Considering two different strategies based on technological approaches, the case of pre-extraction can be given preference considering the interests of involved stakeholders regarding food additive marketing. The implementation process of a forest biorefinery remains widely case dependent, but nonetheless this paper provides some guidance concerning realization steps. The study proved that vast concordance between three different stakeholder groups can be achieved in case of two complex options. Hence, coordination of stakeholder interests is feasible in context of technology implementation strategy development.