Green Plains Inc. acquired a majority interest in Fluid Quip Technologies in a joint transaction led by Ospraie Management LLC. The acquisition capitalizes on the core strengths of the partners to develop and implement proven, value-added agriculture, food and industrial biotechnology systems, and rapidly expand the installation of Ultra-High Protein production across Green Plains’ facilities in parallel with offering these technologies to partnering biofuel facilities.
The partnership will immediately leverage their combined technologies and relationships to produce and market sustainable ingredients with increasing protein concentration levels and nutritional characteristics for pet food, aquaculture and animal feed markets globally. It will also help accelerate the installation of Ultra-High Protein technology across Green Plains’ platform, amplify its production capabilities and further expand product offerings to accelerate the growth of Optimal Aquafeed’s precision aquaculture solutions, leveraging previously announced partnerships with Novozymes and Hayashikane.
“We believe the Fluid Quip IP portfolio has many game-changing valuable technologies that the world needs right now,” said Dwight Anderson, managing partner of Ospraie. “Whether it’s their clean sugar patent suite that creates new, low-cost carbohydrate sources for potential use in synthetic biology, food production, or industrial biochemical fermentation, or their patent library on creating high protein ingredients for pet food, aquaculture and other high-value feed products, this all improves the environmental impact of feed solutions using inputs from farmers. Sustainable protein solutions are healthier, more efficient and less harmful to the global food system including, reducing the carbon footprint of production agriculture.”
“The partnership between Fluid Quip, Ospraie, and Green Plains will accelerate our path to our 2023 transformation from a commodity-processing business to a value-add agriculture, food technology and industrial biotechnology company focusing on creating diverse, non-cyclical, higher-margin products while improving the environmental and carbon footprint of food and feed,” said Todd Becker, president and chief executive officer of Green Plains. “This partnership will help advance the installation of Ultra-High Protein technology across our platform, significantly increase our renewable corn oil production to participate in the growing low carbon fuel markets and the renewable diesel value chain, further drive the reduction of our operating expenses and significantly expand our product offerings. This transaction is a vital step in our evolution as it enhances our intellectual property portfolio, deepens our engineering expertise and maximizes operational efficiencies through powerful technology capabilities while achieving significant financial return opportunities for our shareholders.”
Over the last two years, Green Plains has made strategic investments to significantly transform the business from an ethanol and commodities processor to a leading technology-focused, innovative producer of sustainable, value-added ingredient solutions. The partnership will retain all Fluid Quip employees.
