Nutreco approved to buy the animal nutrition business from Cargill in Spain and Portugal, builds new plant in Italy
The European Commission anti-trust authorities in Brussels have granted Nutreco approval for the acquisition of the animal nutrition business of Cargill in Spain and Portugal, which includes aquafeed production. The agreement in principle was announced on 28 July 2009. The acquisition includes Cargill's 12 compound feed production facilities, with a production volume of around 700,000 tonnes, annual sales of approximately EUR 240 million.
The acquisition fits in Nutreco's strategy to expand its global market positions in feed specialties and fish feed in growth markets and to strengthen its leading compound feed market positions in Canada, the Netherlands and Spain. Since 2006 Nutreco has acquired animal nutrition and fish feed businesses in Brazil, Canada, China, Czech Republic, Guatemala, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Slovakia, Spain, Turkey, United Kingdom and the USA.
Nutreco has also announced that it has opened a state-of-the-art feed specialties plant in Italy that features a high level of environmental responsibility. The plant is in Mozzecane, Italy, creating a single site for three brands of Nutreco: Trouw Nutrition and Farmix feed specialties and Skretting fish feeds, which are produced in a plant already located on the Mozzecane site. This new feed specialties plant integrates and will replace the production of the Trouw Nutrition plant in Bussolengo and the former BASF plant in Comun Nuovo, acquired in 2007. Hence Nutreco captures synergies within Trouw Nutrition while the location facilitates synergies between Trouw Nutrition feed specialties and Skretting fish feeds.
The new plant will manufacture Trouw Nutrition and Farmix products in what it claims is is one of the most technically evolved and advanced production facilities in the industry. Thanks to its modern systems of dosage, mixing and packing, it will fully embrace the European regulation on feed hygiene (EC: No 183/2005). Further, the plant will be FAMI-QS and GMP compliant, in line with the 'best practice' codes of production in the European Community.
The feed specialties plant covers a surface area of 4,600 square metres and comprises an area for raw material stocking and dosage, a processing tower, a finished products warehouse and offices. The processing tower is 32 m high to guarantee a vertical flow of the process, which minimises the risk of cross contamination between products. The dosage system utilises the principle of 'loss in weight', assuring a high production capacity as the calibration of raw material happens simultaneously. The plant also features an automatic labelling system, which cuts manual error in the selection and application of labels while enabling complete traceability of products and assuring elevated safety standards.
