Brightplus in the winning team of SiparilaHack with an ecological wood coating

Jyväskylä University of Applied Sciences’ bioeconomy business accelerator BioPaavo and Kasvu Open organised an innovation competition for Siparila Oy, aiming to find new ecological solutions for the industrial surface treatment of wood. The winner innovation was an ecological wood coating, SinisoijaTM, from Natural Indigo Finland, Brightplus, Häme University of Applied Sciences and postdoctoral researcher Anja Primetta in collaboration with the BioColour project.

SinisoijaTM, “Blue SoyaTM”, challenges the traditional Falu red paint by replacing oil-based wood coatings with a renewable and bio-based alternative. SinisoijaTM’s ingredients come from the indigo dye produced in the fields of Finland and from the side-streams of responsible sourced European soy processing. Despite its name, the colour of the coating can be anything.

“The winning team’s proposal gave the best novelty value, and we loved the story behind it: Finland is the best place in the world to produce natural colours, utilising the pure Finnish nature we can create global value from our fields,” says Olli Prättälä, Siparila’s Sales Director.

A total of five teams presented their innovations in SipariHack’s final.

A pioneering Finnish export product for the global markets

“We are very grateful for this innovation competition, where we got to partner and combine multidisciplinary expertise. Our team was a strong combination of experts from various fields, and as a result of close cooperation, we took our idea to victory”, celebrates the Managing Director of Brightplus, Milja Hannu-Kuure.

“With our globally new innovation, we are able to bring the pioneering Finnish sustainable development know-how to European and world markets. Together with our top team, we developed a pioneering Finnish export product”, adds Pasi Ainasoja, the founder of Natural Indigo Finland.