Oligofeed and the EIC Accelerator: Honeybee Feed Wins EU Approval

On 10 September 2026 the European Commission authorised a molybdenum compound as a feed additive for honeybees, and named a three-year-old company in Lyon as the holder of that authorisation. Implementing Regulation (EU) 2026/2027 lets Oligofeed SAS sell molybdenum chelate of EDTA, the active ingredient of its product Pep'up, in the EU until 1 October 2036. The company and its university partners call it the first additive specifically for insects, a claim reported by Feed & Additive and by the University of Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (UVSQ).

The EIC Accelerator selected Oligofeed in the round it announced on 30 June 2025, and CORDIS records a grant of €2,499,999 for the OLIGOFEED_EU project from 1 October 2025 to 30 September 2027. The project is a year into its two years. What can already be checked is the regulatory record, and it is more mixed than the company's headline figure: the European Food Safety Authority found that the additive "has the potential to be efficacious", on evidence in which most single trials showed no significant difference.

A trace element in the syrup

Molybdenum is a trace element that animals need in small amounts. The compound Oligofeed sells binds it to EDTA, a common chelating agent, as a sodium salt with a molybdenum content of 27 to 31%, according to the regulation's annex. Beekeepers give 8 mg per hive per feeding, dissolved in about two litres of sugar syrup, between honey seasons. The regulation forbids its use while honey supers are on the hive and in the two months before the honey harvest, and requires protective equipment for workers where risks cannot be removed by procedures, because EFSA considers the additive a skin and respiratory sensitiser.

The product page says Pep'up was chosen from 10 molybdenum complexes and is used alongside Varroa mite treatments, not instead of them. The established tools in beekeeping are those mite treatments and protein or sugar feeds; Oligofeed's pitch is that a trace element fed twice a year improves the colony's resistance to stress, which is a different kind of claim and harder to measure.

The descriptions of the product do not all agree. The EIC's announcement of 30 June 2025 describes "a non-toxic oligosaccharide supplement". CORDIS, UVSQ, EFSA and the regulation all describe a molybdenum compound, and none of them mentions an oligosaccharide.

What EFSA made of the trials

The application went in on 3 January 2024, filed by SATT Paris-Saclay, the technology transfer office behind the company, and asked for authorisation as a nutritional additive for honeybees and bumblebees. EFSA's FEEDAP Panel adopted its opinion on 27 January 2026 and found the additive safe for bees, consumers and the environment at 8 mg per hive. On efficacy it was more guarded. It could not conclude that the additive works as a nutrient, because no molybdenum deficiency in bees had been shown, and it reached no conclusion for bumblebees.

For honeybees it assessed performance instead. Of nine trials on spring honey production, four showed a significant benefit and five did not. Four single trials on winter mortality in France and Greece showed no significant difference. What carried the winter result was a pooled analysis of six apiaries, which found lower losses with the additive. The regulation records that the applicant withdrew bumblebees on 2 March 2026 and on 12 May 2026 asked for the additive to be reclassified as a zootechnical additive, in the group of physiological condition stabilisers. That is how it was authorised, for "improvement of winter survival rate".

The pooled analysis is the source of the 44% figure that Oligofeed uses in its press release. Its preprint, led by María Benito-Murcia of the University of Extremadura, reports 283 hives in six apiaries in Spain, Greece and France, a 44% average reduction in winter losses ranging from 27% to 75% by apiary, and no effect on bee population. Its competing interests statement says two authors work for Oligofeed SAS and that Sébastien Floquet consults for the company and is linked to the European patent on the technology. A peer-reviewed version appeared in Research in Veterinary Science in December 2025.

Canada first, Europe from October

Oligofeed's press release of 26 January 2026, issued from Québec, says Health Canada approved the ingredient and that the company planned to sell Pep'up in Canada from 2026, with an animal health product notification still in progress at the time. Feed & Additive and UVSQ both reported in July 2026 that Pep'up was already on sale there. The Health Canada record itself could not be found in this research.

The product page lists packs of 10, 100 and 500 doses, links Canadian orders to a bee supply retailer, and still marks Europe as "coming very soon". The EU regulation entered into force on the twentieth day after its publication on 11 September 2026, that is on 1 October 2026. No price is published, and the company has announced no European distributor.

The EIC project, a year in

The CORDIS record shows a grant agreement signed on 30 September 2025 under the call HORIZON-EIC-2025-ACCELERATOR-02, with Oligofeed as sole beneficiary and an SME. The objective cites honeybee mortality of 36% a year in Europe and €22 billion of European crops affected by pollination shortages, and says the compound was validated "through over 1,500 field tests". No periodic report, deliverable or result is listed yet. The EIC winner spreadsheet lists the award under the 12 March 2025 cut-off, and the EIC's announcement of 30 June 2025 names Oligofeed among the selected companies; a UVSQ article of 1 July 2025 instead attributes it to the October 2024 cut-off.

The award was blended finance. The EIC's announcement marks the equity component as an estimate. The EIC Fund lists an Oligofeed portfolio page, but it returned "Access denied" when checked on 28 October 2026, and no equity amount or date could be found elsewhere.

1. EU market authorisationAchievedRegulation (EU) 2026/2027, in force from 1 October 2026, for honeybees only.
2. Sales outside EuropeStartedOn sale in Canada per company-sourced reports; no volumes published.
3. Proven effect on bee mortalityPartly shownPooled analysis significant; single trials assessed by EFSA not significant.
4. Products for other animal speciesNot yetNo application or product announced; bumblebee application withdrawn.

Small capital, public money

The register shows little capital. BODACC notices record €10,000 of share capital at registration in May 2023, €10,525 after an increase published in October 2023 and €13,439.20 after one published in May 2024. That last increase came in the month iGrow News reported a €600,000 pre-seed round led by The Yield Lab Europe with CCI Capital Croissance and Établissements Peugeot Frères, a round also reported by UVSQ. Share capital in a French SAS is usually far below the money raised, because investors pay most of it as a share premium.

Later figures are harder to reconcile. A UVSQ article of 11 September 2025 lists a €2.5 million fundraise by Oligofeed in the first half of 2025, without naming investors. Le Journal des Entreprises reports €4.3 million raised in total since 2023, from private investors, French i-Lab grants and the €2.5 million EIC award. Whether the UVSQ figure is the EIC grant or a separate equity round could not be established. The accounts for 2024 and 2025 were filed with a confidentiality declaration, according to BODACC, so no revenue, loss or equity figure is public.

Where it fits in EU policy

The EU Pollinators Initiative, adopted in 2018 and revised in 2023, commits the EU to reverse the decline of wild pollinators by 2030. Honeybees are managed livestock rather than wild pollinators, so Oligofeed's product sits next to that policy rather than inside it: it addresses the colony losses that beekeepers carry as a cost, which Oligofeed's chief executive put at 30 to 60%, per Feed & Additive, without naming a period or region. The additive came out of French public research at a CNRS laboratory, was transferred by SATT Paris-Saclay, and is authorised under EU feed law in the name of a French company; Feed & Additive describes it as the first zootechnical feed additive authorised for honeybees.

Oligofeed was not asked for comment for this article. The reporting is based on publicly available sources, listed below.