The growing demand for sustainably produced plant-based active ingredients offers considerable innovation and market potential. The aim of the DiPlanD project is to pool regional expertise in the fields of plant breeding, bioprocess engineering, digital measurement and control technology and active ingredient analysis and to establish Nierembergia (N.) repens as a new agricultural plant in the model region of southern Saxony-Anhalt in order to use it as a source of plant-based vitamin D3 and cholesterol for the pharmaceutical and cosmetics industries. N. repens is characterized by an exceptionally high content of provitamin D, shows rapid growth, is already established as an ornamental plant in Germany and is relatively undemanding in terms of soil properties. It is planned to convert the sterols from particularly promising N. repens accessions and cultivars into biologically active, vegan vitamin D3 and other potentially marketable sterols using bioprocess engineering and digitally controlled technology. Following an optimized extraction and isolation process, they are to be made available to the processing industry as a raw material. DiPlanD will generate a new value chain from a species previously only used as an ornamental plant and create new jobs in the areas of cultivation, mechanical harvesting, further processing and end product production.