2025 Left Some Traces - traceless® Annual Review

Here’s to the traces we left in the past year and to a future where we help leave none behind.

With Christmas right around the corner and the end of the year approaching, we set up our Christmas tree. Just like any Christmas tree, it is filled with ornaments - but on our very special traceless® tree, the ornaments are more than decoration. Each one represents a milestone of the past year. 

Because 2025 left some meaningful traces for us, from innovation awards, to industrial scaling, to driving the biomaterial revolution forward at industry fairs and events...

We’d love to take you along for a recap.  In the video below, our team takes you around the tree and shares their highlight ornaments of the year - including a special message from our management team.

The full review of 2025 continues under the video.

An Ornament of Recognition 

One of the ornaments tells the story of the recognition we received this year. 

A major highlight: our nomination for the Deutscher Zukunftspreis 2025 - one of Germany’s most respected awards for science and innovation. Even though we did not bring home the prize, having been nominated is a huge honour. Not only to our technology, but also to our mission of creating materials that enable a future free from pollution and waste.

Read more here: nomination · story behind the nomination · award ceremony recap.

But this wasn’t the only recognition we received. At the German Sustainability Award (DNP25), we brought home two awards: 

• German Sustainability Award Companies – Plastics & Rubbers 

• Transformation Field Award – Resources 

This year, we also received the Circularity Champion Award (Cradle2Cradle category), the Sustainable Food Awards – Packaging Category and the KMPG Tech Innovator Germany.

Beyond the awards themselves, our mission reached a wider audience than ever before. Outlets such as National Geographic, FAZ, and DER SPIEGEL spotlighted the shift happening in the chemical and materials sectors: a move toward circularity, the bioeconomy, and innovations where ecological and economic value go hand in hand. 

We Entered New Land 

Another ornament marks a very physical milestone. This summer, we packed up our offices in the ISI-Zentrum in Buchholz in der Nordheide and moved into our very own office and production facility in Harburg, Hamburg. 

We refer to it as Neuland - not only because it is the name of the district, but because it represents “entering new land” in every sense. In German, Neuland betreten means breaking new ground. It captures everything this production facility stands for: innovation, progress, and venturing into uncharted territory. 

Because our first large-scale production facility is more than a scaling milestone, it is an important step toward transforming the industry. Neuland reflects the pioneering spirit that drives everything we do at traceless®.  

Curious what it looked like at the beginning of the year? Check this blogpost.

100+ Tracies on One Mission 

This ornament represents a milestone close to our hearts: we passed the mark of 100 Tracies this year. 

When traceless® was founded a little over five years ago, we were a team of around 10 people. Growing to more than 100 today reflects our evolution from a start-up into a scaling production company.

It’s inspiring to see familiar faces from the early days alongside so many new colleagues - all with different backgrounds, nationalities, disciplines, and perspectives, but united by one mission: to create a future where the materials we use leave no trace. 

The Pick That Rocked 

Another ornament brings festival vibes and a real-world test of our material innovation. 

In 2025, foodpickers made of traceless® material, made their large-scale debut at two of Europe’s biggest music festivals - Rock am Ring and Rock im Park - in collaboration with Gastro Team Bremen (GTB), part of Aramark Germany. What began as early-stage prototyping between our companies, grew into a pilot with fully industrially produced picks used across multiple food trucks. 

Thousands of festivalgoers, fast workflows, real-time feedback - and the result was clear: convenient and truly sustainable materials can go hand in hand. Both food-truck operators and guests responded positively, marking an important milestone toward scaling our foodservice collection.

Full pilot recap here & interview with GTB here.

A Fresh Look for a Scaling Team 

One ornament represents a shift in how we communicate who we are. 

As traceless® evolved from a start-up into a scale-up building its own production facility, it was time for our look to grow with us. We worked on a design update to give traceless® a fresh identity – an updated colour palette, logo, and refined typography. For a fresh look, with the same roots. Just blossomed.  

We also relaunched our website with clearer navigation, new content, and a design that better reflects our audiences and showcases our technology and solutions powered by our material innovation traceless®.  

Explore our new look and website here. 

Black Is the New Orange 

Another ornament marks an exciting step in our material portfolio. 

This year, we launched the new traceless® injection-moulding grade, tailored for improved technical performance and industrial scalability. One standout feature: its naturally black colour - achieved not through added pigments, but through the underlying plant-based formulation itself. 

The result: a material that performs better, processes smoothly on standard machinery, and expands the application possibilities for traceless® - while staying true to our sustainability standards. 

Read the full story here.

Fairs & Events – Milestones on the Road 

Throughout 2025, we met partners, innovators, and industry leaders at key events that shape the future of sustainable materials: 

• INTERNORGA 2025 - where we showcased our food-service collection and discussed the future of circular materials in gastronomy.

• FACHPACK 2025 - where the European packaging sector gathered to explore solutions that balance performance and sustainability.
  

• K 2025 - where we demonstrated how traceless® materials can be processed on conventional converting equipment, showing what true sustainability looks like on industrial scale.

  
  

Each fair strengthened our network and confirmed the momentum behind the biomaterial revolution. 

An Ornament for What’s to Come… 

At the very top of the tree shines the ornament for 2026 - the one still to be filled. 

The year ahead will focus on:

• scaling production, 

• our commercial-scale market entry, 

• expanding applications, 

• taking first steps toward an even larger production facility, 

• and continuing to drive material innovation designed to leave no trace. 

Thank You!

Every ornament on this tree tells a part of our story, and together they form the narrative of a year we’re proud to look back on.

Here’s to the traces we left in the past year and to a future where we help leave none behind.