In the past the precious long fibres were removed from the hemp stems on the farm. The process used to obtain the fibres would be too costly and labour intensive to even consider in the context of modern agriculture. The strategy of Gruppo Fibranova is therefore to design and develop new systems for the processing of the raw materials. In any system developed Gruppo Fibranova considers the participation of the farmers to be an essential element – only by participating are they guaranteed to profit from the added value of this first processing step (decortication). The heart of the activity of Gruppo Fibranova is the retting of the fibre that is separated from the core during hackling, a process used to obtain high quality long fibre. The technological aspects of this process have been studied in order to minimise their environmental impact, and thus offer fibre for textiles, the latter of which can be classified as organic.

Among the potential commercial applications of hemp fibre, its use in the textile industry is that which offers the best chance of it being relaunched as an industrial crop. Gruppo Fibranova does not stop at textiles though, it is also applying itself to the use of hemp in the paper, building materials, bio-plastics, and other industries. Numerous modern and efficient industrial processing systems already exist that start off with hemp as the raw material and Gruppo Fibranova studies then and proposes secure and efficient solutions on how to further develop them.