Nutreco announced today that it has signed an agreement to increase its shareholding in its Brazilian joint venture Nutreco Fri-Ribe from 51% to 97%. The joint venture was formed in November 2009. The increased shareholding provides Nutreco a good basis for building a strong position in one of the most important agriculture and aquaculture growth markets in the world. Brazil is the third largest animal nutrition market in the world, with annual growth of approximately 4-5%.

Nutreco Fri-Ribe supplies premix and feed specialties products for ruminant, swine, poultry and aquaculture species. Nutreco Fri-Ribe is market leader in shrimp feed with more than 20% market share and the number two feed provider for tilapia with more than 10% market share. In Brazil, Nutreco employs 470 employees with revenue of EUR 84 million.

Jerry Vergeer, Nutreco's Chief Operating Officer Animal Nutrition: "After two years of strong development and cooperation with our partners, we are now ready for the next phase of growth activities in Brazil. Achieving 97% of the shares creates the platform to make further steps that are in line with Nutreco's strategic Ambition 2016."

Nutreco's 'Ambition 2016 - driving sustainable growth' is to grow and improve profitability by innovative and sustainable nutritional solutions for its customers. This will be realised by focusing on a higher margin portfolio of nutritional solutions such as premixes, feed specialties and fish feed and by expanding into the growth geographies of Latin America, Russia, China and Southeast Asia, which will see the largest increases in both production and consumption of animal protein food products.